Chuck vs the Future REDUX
by Notorious JMG
Summary: A Christmas morning Nerd Herd call leads to a trip through time and space, ending on board a rickety old Firefly transport. Will Sarah and Casey be able to find Chuck? More importantly, will he want to come back? Crossover with "Firefly". MINIMAL Charah.
1. Serenity

_To my faithful remnant:_

_You may have noticed that I have not published anything in over a month. This last five weeks or so have been a particularly excruciating and frustrating period in which I have found myself unable to write anything._

_So, in my desperation to break my writer's block, I have decided to go back to the beginning. My first big _Chuck_ story was a crossover with Joss Whedon's _Firefly_, entitled "Chuck vs. the Future." It was a good story, and fun to write – but could've been greatly improved with a certain amount of polish, and knowledge of certain things that we now know about Chuck Bartowski._

_I initially wanted to simply call this a redux of "Chuck vs. the Future". I plan to polish some parts, and embellish others, all the while maintaining the original plot and structure of the story. However, I have decided to move the timeframe up by one year, so that it follows "Chuck vs. Santa Claus" as opposed to "Chuck vs. the Crown Vic." Given that that causes a rather significant shift in the relational dynamic between Chuck and Sarah Walker, and given that the story now takes place a full year later, I feel obligated to classify this as a re-write, rather than a redux._

_I hope I don't upset anybody by re-writing this story. As the author, I feel that it's my right and privilege to do so. I also hope that those of you who might be reading this story for the first time enjoy it._

_In closing… "I aim to misbehave." – Captain Malcolm Reynolds, _Serenity.

* * *

**_Chuck vs. the Future_, Chapter 1 - "Serenity"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):  
**Chuck Bartowski - Zachary Levi  
Two - Andy Richter  
Jayne Cobb - Adam Baldwin  
Simon Tam - Sean Maher  
Mal Reynolds - Nathan Fillion

* * *

**2:20 AM, Pacific Standard Time  
Thursday, December 25****th****, 2008  
Van Nuys, California**

To say that Chuck Bartowski was not amused would be an understatement.

Indeed, a far more accurate statement would be to say that he was massively annoyed.

Half an hour ago, Chuck had been sleeping peacefully – well, as peacefully as he could, given that he had seen a man shot in cold blood, not six hours before. Nonetheless, he had managed to work his way into a deep and dreamless sleep.

That was, until his cell phone rang. Ten minutes until two o'clock on Christmas morning, and Chuck had received a call from a frantic Buy More customer who was having severe difficulty setting up a computer that was supposed to be his children's Christmas present.

Chuck was, at first, not sure why he had gotten the call – after all, Lester, being Jewish, and therefore non-observant of Christmas, had been assigned Herder-On-Call duties for Christmas Day. However, when Chuck called the Nerd Herd Emergency line and was forwarded to Lester's phone, he immediately got Lester's voicemail message… informing callers to call Chuck Bartowski, and giving Chuck's phone number.

And so it was that Chuck found himself cruising through the Valley, down Chandler Boulevard, in the wee hours of the morning, cursing Lester Patel to the skies. Wearily, he looked out the passenger side of the car, watching for… "14203 Chandler," he muttered. Just past Hazeltine, if memory served.

As he squinted to see the addresses on the curb, something in his peripheral vision caught his attention. An odd glow – something had appeared in the center of Chandler Boulevard.

Chuck's attention was dragged away from the curb to the glowing ball in the center of the street. As Chuck brought the Herder to a stop, he was struck by the object and its resemblance to the so-called Christmas star. "If I didn't know better, I'd think the baby Jesus was below the street," he muttered to himself.

Shaking his head and blinking his eyes, Chuck tried to clear his vision. When the object didn't go away, he pinched himself to make sure he was awake. After confirming that he was, in fact, awake, he stared at the object with curiosity. "What the hell is going on?"

* * *

Nobody ever thought much of a Department of Water and Power van. Even at this very early hour on a holiday, nobody would have even so much as bothered to check on the Ford Econoline with the DWP logo painted on it.

That particular facet of life in Los Angeles was exactly why the man inside the van had chosen such a vehicle. They were ubiquitous, and nobody, not even the LAPD, would question his presence.

As he watched the red and white Toyota Yaris come to a halt less than two hundred feet away, he activated his microphone. "Six, this is Two," he said. "Bartowski is in position, and the door is ready."

Two did not know who Six was. Two did not care to know who Six was. Two was quite happy with his life in the Meadow Branch neighborhood out in Porter Ranch, and the less he knew about the command structure, the better.

"_Copy that, Two,_" he heard. "_You may proceed at your discretion._"

Two nodded. "I don't know who you pissed off, Bartowski," he said quietly. "But you… are about to go where no man has gone before."

Reaching out his hand, he hit a button – and the glowing object in the middle of Chandler Boulevard flashed and began to pulsate.

* * *

"Whoa!" Chuck exclaimed. The glowing mass had suddenly gone active in some way. "What the hell –"

That's when he realized that the Herder had begun to move. It was in park, but it was moving forward – toward the glowing mass.

"Oh, no!" Chuck said. "No, no, stop!" This was not good. He stood on the Toyota's brakes, but to no avail. He threw the Herder into reverse and stomped on the gas. The tiny engine screamed, the front tires threw up a cloud of smoke – and yet, he moved, inexorably forward, toward the glowing mass of – of whatever it was.

As the Herder's tachometer climbed into the red, the engine started to scream in distress, so Chuck tried a different tactic. Putting the Herder into park, he set the handbrake, and opened the door.

Unbuckling his seatbelt, he stood up – just in time to hear a bullet crack past his head and shatter the driver's window.

"Holy crap!" Chuck squealed. Despite the clearly serious situation, he was annoyed with himself for sounding like a little girl. _Oh, the crap Casey would give me for that_.

Chuck dove back into the Herder and slammed the driver's door shut behind him. Cowering as low as he could, he prayed that another bullet wouldn't come flying in – and that was when he noticed that the entire Herder was glowing.

_Uh-oh._

* * *

"Six, Two. What the hell is going on?"

Two heard a sigh in his headset. "_Bartowski cannot be allowed to escape. Our orders were not to kill him. However, he holds the key to cracking Bryce Larkin. If we put him somewhere that only we know of, then we will be far more likely to find Larkin._"

Two shook his head. Over a year now. Countless agents lost, including the half dozen agents expended in that debacle at the Burbank Buy More earlier that day. No man – not even this Bryce Larkin – was worth this effort.

As he watched, the little Toyota began to glow. Slowly, but inexorably, it was sucked into the glowing mass. And then – the mass disappeared. The Toyota was gone.

It was if it had never been there.

"Six, this is Two," he said again. "Bartowski's gone. Larkin's never gonna find him."

* * *

The Herder had been moving at nearly thirty miles an hour when it disappeared into the glowing mass. Had Chuck been thinking, he would have put his seatbelt back on. However, he was so exhausted from the events of the day before and from a lack of sleep, and he was so confused by what was going on just at that moment, that he never thought to do so.

So it was that when the Herder was deposited in its pre-determined destination, without the pull of the glowing mass to move it forward, it came to an immediate halt. Chuck, however, did not. The momentum of his body hurled him through the windshield, the right-hand side of his ribcage smashing against the steering wheel as he was ejected.

Bouncing off the hood, Chuck fell to the floor of – well, wherever he was. He couldn't tell, couldn't get a glimpse as he rolled, pain shooting through his body every time his ribcage contacted the floor.

Finally, he came to a stop. His eyes focused just long enough for him to see what looked like a small warehouse, and then he slipped into unconsciousness, blood trickling from a gash on the side of his head.

On the other side of the room, a man was working on moving a crate into a cleverly concealed closet in the wall when the Herder made its grand entrance. The noise of the tires and the shattering windshield got his attention immediately, and he whirled to face the intruder, his gun clearing his waistband in the blink of an eye.

His eyes narrowed as the young man bounced off the hood of the – well, it looked like some sort of modified Mule – and rolled across the floor. "What the ruttin' hell?" he muttered.

Re-holstering his gun, he crossed the room. Grabbing Chuck by the shoulders, he shook him awake. "Hey, you," he grunted as Chuck's eyes came open. "Who are you? Where the hell'd you come from?"

Chuck's eyes focused briefly. "Casey?" he whispered his voice a weak rasp, his eyes filling with recognition. "Is that you?"

Confusion crossed the man's face. "Casey?" he replied. "Who the hell is that?"

"Casey… get Sar… Sa…" Chuck slipped back into unconsciousness, his body going limp.

The man looked down at Chuck for a moment, at a loss. Then, as if remembering that a strange vehicle had just appeared twenty feet away from him and violently ejected its occupant, he crossed to the intercom on the wall, depressing the talk button when he reached it.

"Mal," he said, "it's Jayne. We got some sorta intruder in the cargo bay."

* * *

_The gun came up. Chuck saw the charm bracelet, dangling from her wrist._

"Charles…"

_The gun fired. Lieutenant Mauser jerked, and then pitched forward, a spray of red erupting as he fell._

"Wake up, Charles…"

_Then Sarah saw him. She turned toward him. Her face was blank, no emotion on it. But she looked like she had a halo – or rather, it looked like the sun was coming up behind her._

_What the hell?_

"Charles. Wake up."

Chuck's eyes slowly came open, and then nearly snapped back closed as a bright light invaded. He felt like the Sandman had paid a visit or five. His vision was blurry, but he was able to make out a man with brown hair, wearing scrubs, looking down at him.

"Wha… wha… what…"

"Water?" the man asked. _No, I was trying to ask where I am_, Chuck thought, but water would certainly help his case – and his voice – so he just nodded.

The brown haired man picked up a squeeze bottle and held the straw up to Chuck's lips. Chuck took hold of the straw and drank greedily, pulling back when his throat no longer felt like the Mohave Desert. "Ahhh," he sighed. He tried to take a deep breath, but winced as he felt like he was stabbed in the right side of his chest.

Taking a more shallow breath, he spoke quietly. "Where am I?" he asked. "And who are you?"

"My name is Dr. Simon Tam," the man replied. "You are very dehydrated. I have you on a saline drip, but you've been out for nearly forty-eight hours. You suffered six cracked ribs, a collapsed lung, and a minor concussion. Given what Jayne told me about the nature of your entrance, you're actually very lucky that that's all."

Dr. Tam paused, hesitant to go on. "As for where you are… well, that's a little complicated."

Chuck raised an eyebrow. "How is it complicated?" he replied. "I mean, Casey knows I'm here. I saw him right after crash. Where is he?"

Dr. Tam's face took on a confused expression. "I... uh… don't know a Casey," he said. "Are you sure you actually saw him?"

"I'm positive," Chuck insisted. "He asked me who I was and where the hell I had come from – which Casey should've known – but I'm certain it was him! I mean, it looked just like him, although he did look like he had been homeless for a while –"

"Oh," Simon interrupted him. "That was actually Jayne Cobb. He's part of our crew, although I don't necessarily know that I can give you an accurate description of his position. Hired thug might work."

"Crew?" Chuck asked. "Hired thug?" He shook his head, wincing again. "Okay, you're right. This is complicated. Where am I?"

Simon put a hand to his forehead. "Perhaps… the captain should come down here."

Five minutes later, a taller, older man stepped through the doorway. "Doctor," he said. "I understand our patient's returned to the land of the living?"

"Yes, he has," Simon replied. "And he needs things to be… uncomplicated."

The captain's face took on a pained expression. "Well, seein' as what we've been able to gather about him, I'd say that uncomplicatin' things might be a bit… well, complicated."

Turning to face Chuck, the captain withdrew a wallet from his pocket. "Hey!" Chuck said. "That's mine!"

"That so," the captain replied. "Then I'd be takin' it that you're Charles I. Bartowski, of 1355 Laveta Terrace, Los Angeles, California, United States, Earth-That-Was?"

_Earth-That-Was?_ Chuck's eyes narrowed. "Seriously, who are you?"

"My name's Malcolm Reynolds," the captain replied, "and you're onboard my ship, the Firefly class transport _Serenity_. And far as I can see, I'm the one who should be askin' who you might be, given that you have an ident card sayin' you were born in September of 1980."

"I WAS born in September of 1980," Chuck shot back, a note of irritation entering his voice.

"Uh-huh," Reynolds muttered, clearly unconvinced. "And you care to explain to me what that beast is that you parked in the middle of my cargo bay?"

Chuck rolled his eyes. "A 2006 Toyota Yaris," he sighed. "Now, seriously. Are you gonna tell me who the hell you are or not?"

Malcolm Reynolds smiled. "Space pirates, for lack of a more fittin' term."

"Riiiight," Chuck laughed. "Suuuure you are. This is some elaborate joke that Morgan set up, isn't it? I'm supposed to tell you that I'm Master Chief, right? Well, that's my name. Master Chief."

Mal cocked his head. "Pretty sure that this here California driver's license says you're Charles I. Bartowski."

That stopped Chuck short. "Wait. You have… you don't know who Master Chief is, do you?"

Mal shrugged. "I do not. Not unless you're referrin' to somebody who was in the War."

"Oh God," Chuck whispered. Realization was sinking in – this was real. "It's not December of 2008, is it?"

Mal laughed in disbelief. "That it most certainly is not," he said. "Matter of fact, it's not even close. Today's Christmas Eve, 2518."

Chuck's eyes went wide. A million thoughts bombarded his mind all at once. He tried to speak, tried to say something, but only one thing came out.

"Well… shit."


	2. Blue Christmas

**Chuck vs. the Future, Chapter 2 – "Blue Christmas"**

_**Author's note: **__This chapter is completely new. It did not appear in the original version of this story, but I always felt like the story really needed an explanation of what occurred after Chuck's abduction._

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Morgan Grimes – Joshua Gomez  
Ellie Bartowski – Sarah Lancaster  
Devon "Captain Awesome" Woodcomb – Ryan McPartlin  
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
John Casey – Adam Baldwin  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
Jayne Cobb – Adam Baldwin  
Mal Reynolds – Nathan Fillion  
Simon Tam – Sean Maher  
General Beckman – Bonita Fredericy

* * *

**7:30 AM, Pacific Standard Time  
December 25****th****, 2008  
Los Angeles, CA**

"Chuck?"

The voice invaded Ellie Bartowski's unconscious mind. She tried desperately to block it out, but sure as the sun rises…

"Chuck, where are you, buddy?"

Ellie groaned as her eyes cracked open. The voice of Morgan Grimes was the last thing she wanted to hear at this time on Christmas morning. "Gonna kill him," she grumbled under her breath as she rolled over.

"Chuck! Dude!"

A wordless growl escaped Ellie's throat as she swung her legs out of her bed. Wrapping herself in a bathrobe, she stalked to the door and yanked it open. "Morgan!" she hissed. "People are trying to sleep!"

Morgan whirled around, his eyes going wide at Ellie's just-awakened appearance. "Whoa," he breathed. "Uh… I know people are trying to sleep, but Chuck's not here."

Ellie narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean, he's not here? Of course he's here. He's probably in the shower or something."

Morgan shook his head. "Nope," he replied. "His bed's empty, and his phone and his wallet are gone. Also, there's a couple of hangars on his bed."

"Hangars?" Ellie asked, confused. "You mean, like, as if he got into a Nerd Herd uniform?"

"Could be," Morgan said with a shrug. "I mean, he was the Herder on call last night."

Ellie shook her head. "No he wasn't," she said. "Lester – oh, wait."

Lester Patel had bravely – and foolishly – attempted to take on a Fulcrum operative named Ned Ryerson at the Buy More the day before. It had resulted in cracked ribs and a trip to the hospital – and Lester's brilliantly devious plan to tell Nerd Herd customers to call Chuck.

"Morgan!" a voice boomed behind Ellie. Morgan looked up, and grimaced. Devon Woodcomb – the great thief who had "stolen" Ellie from Morgan – walked into the hallway. "Chuckster's fine. He probably just went over to Sarah's after finishing whatever job. You know, get a little work done on himself."

Ellie spun around and stared daggers at her fiancé. "Thank you for that mental image of my brother," she said dryly. "It was pretty much the last thing I needed."

Devon rolled his eyes, but before he could respond, the doorbell rang. "And who might that be?" he asked.

Striding down the hall, he headed toward the front door with a purpose, Ellie and Morgan right behind him. He pulled it open, to reveal –

"Sarah?" Devon looked out at the blonde, with a distinct note of surprise in his voice.

But Devon's surprise wasn't due to Sarah Walker's presence. It was her appearance. Her face was red and blotchy, tear streaks down her cheeks. Her red-rimmed eyes betrayed a distinct lack of sleep, and her hair had certainly seen better days.

"Sarah?" Ellie echoed Devon, a note of concern in her voice. "Are you alright?"

Sarah started to nod, but then seemed to think better of it, and shook her head emphatically instead. "Sarah, what's wrong?" Ellie asked.

Looking up to meet Ellie's gaze, Sarah took a deep breath, and managed to compose herself for a moment. "Ellie… I'm so sorry," she said softly, before breaking down once more.

* * *

**FIVE HOURS EARLIER**

The unexpected alarms sounding from John Casey's laptop dragged him so violently from REM sleep that he jerked upwards and to the side, falling out of his bed and crashing to the floor.

"Goddamnwhatthehell?!" he cursed, picking himself up and advancing quickly on his laptop to silence the klaxons. A mouse click silenced the alarms, but they were quickly forgotten as Casey's worst nightmare came into view on the fifteen inch LCD screen in front of him.

Casey's chest constricted. This was bad. This was very bad. "Oh, fuck," he breathed.

Every GPS tracker on Chuck Bartowski had simultaneously disappeared. His iPhone, his watch, his driver's license, his Herder – they had all gone off the grid in the same instant, in the same location. And they hadn't been destroyed by an explosion – there would've been enough of a residual signal to indicate that. No, they had all completely disappeared, all at once.

By the time Casey thought to call Sarah Walker, he was on the 101, halfway to North Hollywood. "Pick up, Walker, pick up!" he hissed as his Crown Vic barreled down the nearly empty Hollywood Freeway.

Finally, Sarah answered her phone. "_'lo?_" she said sleepily. "_Casey?_"

"Walker, we've got a serious problem," Casey said. "Bartowski disappeared – I mean, completely. Every GPS tracker I have on him dropped out of existence, all at once, all in the same place."

There was silence on the other end. "Walker?"

"_You – you can't be serious,_" the CIA agent replied. "_I mean, this is your idea of a sick joke, right?_"

"No joke," Casey replied grimly. "Meet me at Woodman and Chandler, in Van Nuys."

Sarah arrived at the intersection where Chuck had disappeared not even five minutes after Casey – _Impressive_, the NSA agent thought, especially considering that Sarah had even further to go to Van Nuys than did Casey, and he had several miles' head start on her.

Brushing the irrelevant thought aside, he looked around the deserted intersection. "This makes no sense," he grumbled, the light on his face shifting from green to yellow to red as the stoplight on Woodman cycled through. "There should be something."

Sarah didn't say anything. "We need to get a team out here, and we need to pull the traffic video," Casey continued, but still got no response from his CIA partner.

Casey reached out a hand and gently turned Sarah around to face him. The catatonic look of shock on her face was a very bad sign, the fingers unconsciously playing with the charm bracelet around her right wrist even worse. "Walker," he said gently. When he got no response, he said it louder. "Walker!"

That finally got her attention. Sarah blinked. "Uh, sorry," she said, her voice sounding hollow. "Yeah, let's get a team out here… uh, I'll call, uh, Streets, see if they can pull that video for us."

"Uh-huh," Casey replied, unconvinced that Sarah would actually be able to accomplish anything in the state she was in.

* * *

**7:30 AM, Alliance Mean Time  
December 25****th****, 2518  
Transport **_**Serenity**_

Chuck Bartowski slowly came to wakefulness. A mixed smell of pine and pancakes hung in the air – the promise of Christmas morning. Not too far away, he could hear a female voice humming "O Come All Ye Faithful."

He smiled to himself. Every year, Ellie swore that she wasn't going to make pancakes for him, Morgan, and the last couple of years, Devon as well, but every year, on Christmas morning, there they were.

"What a horrible dream," he mumbled to himself. What kind of wretched excuse for a human being would put in a Nerd Herd call at 2:00 in the morning on Christmas Day, anyway?

Well. He needed to get up. Morgan would be coming in through the Morgan Door at any moment, Sarah would be here by 8:00 –

Sarah. The thought of Sarah stopped him short. Twenty-four hours ago, he had been convinced that he knew how he felt about her – even if she wasn't allowed to feel that way back. And when he had closed the clasp of his mom's charm bracelet around her right wrist, the look on her face made him pretty certain that she did feel that way.

But watching her shoot the Fulcrum agent, and then her lying to his face about it – it was tough to handle. It made him wonder, once again, if he would ever be able to completely be with her, without secrets, being able to really trust her.

He sighed unhappily – and then, his eyes flew open as a lightning bolt of pain shot through his chest. He looked around frantically, seeing first the unfamiliar room he was in – then the bandages on his chest –

"Oh God," he gasped, realizing that the nightmare had just come to life. Chuck shot to his feet, finding himself clad only in a pair of sweatpants. Stumbling to the door, he wrenched it open, revealing an unfamiliar hallway.

It all came flooding back. Not-Casey – Dr. Tam – Captain Reynolds – _Serenity_ –

_No!_ Chuck's mind raged. _NO! It can't be true!_

He lurched out into the hallway, and headed toward what looked like a set of stairs. Trembling hands grasped a banister as he descended into the room below –

The room where it all started. This was the warehouse-looking area that he had first seen before passing out. There was the Herder, front tires blown, windshield and driver's window gone, the remnants of the windshield scattered in front of the Toyota –

_The Herder will be safe_, Chuck told himself, as utter irrationality began to take hold. _Yes, the Herder will keep me safe. It always keeps me safe. That must be why Sarah's always telling me to stay in the car –_

"Hey!" he heard a voice say. He turned – to see Not-Casey. What was his name? Jayne?

_But Jayne's a girl's name_, Chuck's mind said, even as Jayne approached him. "Where d'you think you're goin'?"

"You can't talk like that," Chuck replied. His mind was now spinning completely out of control. "That's not your voice – you can't use that voice!"

"Whaddya mean that's not my – UMPH," Jayne Cobb gasped, as Chuck's foot made contact with his stomach.

Chuck darted across the cargo bay to the Toyota Yaris, and wrenched the driver's door open. He got in, and found the keys still in the ignition. Wide-eyed with fear, he turned the engine over and put the transmission in gear.

A horrific screeching sound emanated from the torque converter of the Yaris. It had been damaged when the car landed on _Serenity_, but was still transferring some power from the engine to the transmission.

With the transmission damaged and the front tires gone, the Herder could barely creep forward, but Chuck's mind was so deluded at that moment that it seemed like he was speeding away. "I can escape," he gasped – and that's when Intersect images started to randomly pop up before his eyes.

"No, go away!" he cried, brushing a hand in front of his eyes, not hearing Jayne call, "I need some help down here!"

As the Herder continued to roll across the floor, the erratic flashes of images increased in frequency and intensity, until they were the only thing Chuck saw. And so it was that he didn't see Simon Tam run up to the car, needle in hand –

Chuck slumped forward, his limp foot sliding off the accelerator. The tortured Toyota came to a halt, and Mal Reynolds reached through the driver's window, putting it in park and turning off the ignition.

"My God," Simon said, feeling Chuck's forehead. "He's burning up. He must have an infection of some sort. He needs to get to the infirmary, right now."

* * *

**4:30 AM, Pacific Standard Time  
December 25****th****, 2008  
Van Nuys, CA**

Casey had ended up having to force Sarah to go sit down in the back seat of the Crown Vic. He was almost tempted to have her sedated, but resisted the urge. He looked away from the old police car and back toward the monitor set up on the tailgate of the mobile command unit.

"_That's impossible,_" General Beckman was saying, looking at the video that Casey had gotten from the Los Angeles Streets Department. "_Major Casey, I'm telling you, that's impossible._"

"Clearly, it's not, General," Casey replied. "Do you know something I don't know?"

Beckman sighed and shook her head. "_What that appears to be is the usage of a piece of, well, we think extraterrestrial technology that was found in southern Arizona after the Phoenix Lights incident back in 1997. Area 51 had been working on it, but we had had no results, and then, six months ago, the project manager AND the technology both completely disappeared._"

The pained look on Beckman's face indicated that she had more to say. "And?" Casey asked.

"_And he popped up two months ago in a Fulcrum file that Bryce Larkin got to us,_" Beckman replied. "_I'd say it's very possible that Fulcrum has… well… not killed Bartowski, not abducted him, but deposited him someplace that we don't know._"

"Oh, that's just magical," Casey growled. Beckman frowned at him. "Uh, sorry, ma'am," he said. "How exactly are we supposed to cover this up?"

Beckman shook her head. "_Fake a bad traffic accident, Major,_" she replied. "_We've got one of those new imitator dummies in L.A. – get it rigged up to look like Bartowski, have the response team program it to indicate massive trauma, and get it placed in the ICU at Northridge Medical Center._"

Casey raised an eyebrow. "General, Bartowski's sister and her fiancé are both MDs. Do you think one of those imitators is going to fool them?"

"_I assure you it will,_" Beckman replied. "_It had better, Major. Do you understand?_"

Casey nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

* * *

Sarah tried to compose herself as she approached the Bartowskis' apartment, but to no avail. _At least I don't have to even begin to fake being upset_, the last rational corner of her mind thought to itself as she pressed the doorbell button.

The door opened to reveal Devon Woodcomb. He looked out at Sarah, and a smile began to form on his face, but then fell away as he took in her appearance. "Sarah?" he asked, a note of concern in his voice.

Ellie Bartowski looked around Devon. "Sarah?" she echoed her fiancé. "Are you alright?"

Sarah's head began to move up and down, almost reflexively, but then changed to shaking side to side. The CIA agent forced a sob down. "Sarah, what's wrong?"

Sarah forced herself to look up at Chuck's sister. "Ellie… I'm so sorry," she whispered. "There was, uh, there was an accident, up in Van Nuys… Chuck was on a Nerd Herd call…"

Ellie's hands had gone to her mouth at the word accident, and the color had begun to drain from her face. "He was on the phone with me when it happened," Sarah said, feeling even more miserable about having to lie to Ellie. "He's in really bad shape – they did emergency surgery on him over at Northridge, he's in a coma –"

"Wait!" Ellie interrupted Sarah, the older woman's eyes going wide. "You mean, he's still alive?"

Sarah nodded, almost imperceptibly. "Oh, thank God!" Ellie cried, wrapping her arms around Sarah.

Sarah hugged Ellie back, but her arms felt limp. _Chuck's still alive_, she thought to herself. _He has to be._


	3. Message In a Bottle

_**Chuck vs. the Future**_**, Chapter 3 – "Message In a Bottle"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
General Diane Beckman – Bonita Fredericy  
John Casey – Adam Baldwin  
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
Simon Tam – Sean Maher  
Kaylee Frye – Jewel Staite  
Two/Brad White – Andy Richter  
Mal Reynolds – Nathan Fillion  
Six/Ken Black – Brent Sexton  
Inara Serra – Morena Baccarin

* * *

**12:30 PM, Pacific Standard Time  
December 25****th****, 2008  
Los Angeles, CA**

"_Alright,_" General Beckman began. "_Here's what we know._

"_The device that my analysts and I believe was used this morning was stolen from Area 51 six months ago. The project director, a Ken Black, disappeared with it._

"_We believe that he has been spotted in the suburb of Porter Ranch, up on the north side of the San Fernando Valley. But he's not the only person of interest who lives there._

"_There was a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power van on the side of the street in the video of Bartowski's disappearance. We ran the plates on every vehicle we could, just to be on the safe side, and it turned out that the DWP van was NOT registered to the City of Los Angeles._"

Casey frowned. "Really," he said. "Who was it registered to?"

A small smile appeared on Beckman's face. "_One Brad White,_" she replied. "_Mr. White just happens to live two doors down from Mr. Black._"

"Well, well, how convenient," Casey said, a smile cracking his face as well. "Walker, you ready to go violate some Constitutional rights?"

Sarah looked up at him, a noticeable lack of humor on her face. "Let's just do this, alright?"

Casey sighed. "Lighten up, Walker." He turned back to the NSA director. "We'll report back as soon as we know anything," he told her. "In fact, I'm sure we'll find everything to be quite clear… it'll all be in Black and White, you might say." A barely suppressed chuckle followed Casey's attempt at a joke.

Beckman sighed and rolled her eyes. "_Thank God you decided to be a heartless killer for a living, John._"

* * *

**10:30 AM, Alliance Mean Time  
December 27****th****, 2518**

Chuck woke with a start, unsure of where he was – again.

This time, though, he didn't panic. He realized that he was in a hospital or an infirmary of some sort.

This time, he remembered. He was in the future. He was on a ship called _Serenity_.

And for reasons passing understanding, his iPhone sat on the tool tray next to him. Even though he knew it was crazy, he picked it up and unlocked it –

Zero bars. Well, that wasn't too terribly surprising. Chuck was pretty sure AT&T did not exist in the twenty-sixth century, and even if they did, service would likely not be great out here in… wherever they were.

He pulled up his photo album and scrolled through the pictures. A painful sigh escaped Chuck as he looked at the first picture. Even in the midst of the hostage situation at the Buy More, he and Sarah had found the time to take a picture together.

Chuck couldn't deny what he saw on Sarah's face, as she held her wrist up to make sure that the charm bracelet was in the picture. Execution of a Fulcrum agent or no, he saw right there – she really did care.

Or at least, he thought she did. After all, she was a highly trained CIA operative. How could he possibly know what was real and what wasn't –

"You know, I bet we can wire that into the Cortex if you want."

Chuck practically jumped out of the bed at the sound of the voice behind him. The iPhone clattered back to the tool tray as he flipped over, wincing in pain as he landed on the right side of his ribcage. "OWWWW," he complained.

A red-headed woman who looked to be about Chuck's age was standing there, and her face took on a look of concern as he groaned in pain. "Oh, are you okay?" she asked, reaching out a hand.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he replied, drawing a breath. Not as painful as landing on his cracked ribs, but it still hurt. "Is Dr. Tam around? I think I need a Tylenol or something."

The woman shook her head. "No, Simon's not on right now – he's probably sleepin' or something. But he left some pain pills for you – ibu-something-or-other, he called them."

"Ibuprofen," Chuck said, a sense of relief filling him.

"Yeah!" the woman replied cheerily. "Those're the ones. Let me get those for you."

Crossing to a counter, she picked up a small plastic cup and a bottle of water, and brought both back to Chuck. "Here you go!"

Chuck tossed back the two ibuprofen, and followed those with a momentary chug of water. Finally, he set the bottle down. "Thank you."

"No problem," the woman said. "So, Mal says you're a time traveler. Says you showed up in that red and white wreck that's parked down in the bay."

"Something like that," Chuck replied. "My name's Chuck Bartowski."

"Kaylee Frye," she replied, smiling widely. "I have a cousin named Chuck. He's, uh… well, he's not right in the head." She tapped the side of her head, and then twirled a finger around her ear. "Got kicked by a horse a couple years back. Musta shook somethin' loose – he's always talkin' 'bout how the Soviets are out to get him."

"The Soviets?" Chuck asked. "They came back?"

Kaylee shrugged. "Got no idea what the Soviets even are," she replied. "You know them?"

Chuck shook his head. "It was a country on… uh, I guess you call it Earth-That-Was, the Soviet Union, but it collapsed when I was a kid." He cocked his head. "Your cousin REALLY thinks the Soviets are out to get him?"

"Like I said," Kaylee answered, "not all there."

"Gotcha," Chuck said, sitting up. "So, am I allowed to leave?"

"Yeah," Kaylee said, "but Simon said you gotta take your IV with you."

"Oh, joy," Chuck drawled, but he stood anyway, taking hold of the IV pole. "What's he got me on, anyway?"

"Saline," Kaylee said, "'cause you kept gettin' all dehydrated, and some anti-bug medicine to keep you from gettin' infected again, and he said there was somethin' else to keep you from gettin' all bibbledy again."

Chuck smiled wryly. "I'm pretty sure the reason I got all 'bibbledy' is because I had a massive infection. Right?"

Kaylee shrugged. "Wouldn't know," she said. "Simon's the doctor. I'm the mechanic. All I know is that you were tryin' to drive a transport with a busted tranny and two shredded tires. To me, that's pretty bibbledy in the head."

"Now, wait a second," Chuck objected. "I did take basic psychology in college, and I know that when the mind is affected, it will often revert to basic instincts. I've been through a lot with that Toyota, and my mind told me that that was the safe place to be."

And as he spoke, Chuck realized just how crazy his words sounded. "Okay," he admitted, as Kaylee's smile got even bigger. "Maybe I was a little bit bibbledy."

"Happens to the best of us," Kaylee replied. "But you know what? I think I can fix your little transport there up good as new."

Chuck looked at her curiously. "Really."

"Sure," Kaylee said with a shrug. "Transmissions ain't changed much since they were puttin' 'em in windmills back in the 1600s. And tires – easy enough to come by, although you gotta get 'em made out of recycled waste instead of rubber these days."

"I see," Chuck replied, raising an eyebrow. "You sound like you're pretty good with mechanics."

"Aw, I'm okay," Kaylee replied, blushing. "I just come by it naturally. Didn't even plan on bein' a ship's mechanic. I oughta tell you the story of how I ended up on _Serenity_ –"

"And yet, it's probably best you don't," Mal Reynolds interrupted her, walking into the infirmary. "Given the way you're carryin' on with Mr. Bartowski here, I get a mighty strong feelin' you'd regret it pretty quick down the road here."

Kaylee pouted. "Carryin' on, Captain? I was just bein' friendly!"

"Suuure you were," Mal drawled. "And Inara's just an overpriced personal assistant."

Kaylee's jaw dropped. "Aw, now Captain, that's just mean!"

Mal smiled. "Run along now, Kaylee," he said. "You got an engine that needs tendin', and I want to talk with Mr. Bartowski about some things."

As Kaylee headed out of the infirmary, she turned her head over her shoulder to look at Chuck. _Nice ass_, she thought unconsciously. Then, as if embarrassed at her own thoughts, she shook her head. "Maybe I really was carryin' on there," she muttered. Then she smiled. "Not that that's such a bad thing."

* * *

**1:30 PM, Pacific Standard Time  
December 25****th****, 2008  
18834 Dukas St., Porter Ranch, California**

Sarah depressed the doorbell button once and dropped her left hand to her side. Her right hand was behind her back, resting on the butt of her Colt 1911 handgun.

A moment later, the door opened. A heavyset man with pink skin and thinning blond hair stood in the doorway. "Can I help you?" he asked.

"Brad White?" Sarah asked him.

"Yeah, that's me –"

Those were all the words he got out before Sarah's gun came out from behind her back. She shoved the barrel into his mouth and physically pushed him back into the house, slamming the door behind her.

Sarah pushed White into a chair. Pulling a pair of handcuffs from her belt, she yanked his arms behind his back, and handcuffed his wrists together. "Ow!" White objected as she roughly moved his left arm.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Sarah hissed. "Does that hurt?" Yanking downward, she pulled until she felt the satisfying pop of White's left shoulder dislocating. The man howled in pain.

"Life's a bitch, huh?" Sarah asked him, standing up and crossing back in front of him. "Chuck Bartowski. Where is he?"

"Who?" White asked. "I don't know any Chuck Bartowski."

Sarah shook her head. Leaning down, she retrieved a knife from where it was strapped to the side of her leg. It wasn't one of her usual throwing knives, either – this was much more lethal.

"Marine Corps issue Ka-Bar," Sarah observed, lightly caressing the flat of the blade. "It'll cut through your flesh, no problem whatsoever. Now. Chuck Bartowski."

White shook his head. "Screw you, you crazy bitch."

Sarah sighed. "Bad plan," she told him nonchalantly. She flicked her wrist, and before Brad White could even blink, the Ka-Bar had passed through his right shoe and foot, pinning it to the floor. Arching his back, White howled in pain. Sarah reached down and wrenched the knife back out, causing him to whimper again.

"Here's the deal," she told White, her voice low and dangerous. "You're going to tell me exactly what you did. For every thirty seconds that passes that you haven't told me, I'm going to cut a six inch strip of your skin off, wherever on your body I choose."

White's eyes widened momentarily, but then he composed himself. "There's no chance I'll ever tell you," he laughed, his words full of false bravado. "I'll die before you find out."

"Well, that's your decision," Sarah replied. "And oh, would you look at that – it's been thirty seconds."

Moving like a cat, Sarah grasped White's left arm in her hand, dug the knife in, and ripped off a strip of skin. Six inches of skin.

"YAAGAHGAEHHAHAHHHA!" White roared, agony rippling across his face.

"Aw," Sarah said, fake compassion in her voice. "Did you not like that?"

"You… insane…"

"Just tell me something," Sarah said. "It'll all be over so much more quickly."

"Go… to… HELL," White spat. "Why are you so concerned about Bartowski, anyway?"

"He's my ASSET!" Sarah growled. "I was supposed to protect him!"

White laughed weakly. "Whatever, sweetcheeks," he replied. "You're still wearing that bracelet he gave you at the store –"

That was White's fatal error. "You know about that?" Sarah gasped, her eyes widening.

"Admit it… Agent Walker," White hissed. "I bet that Bartowski really gets you wet downst-"

Sarah cut him off with a back-handed blow to his face. Her nails cut open his cheek and drew blood.

White shook his head. "Never gonna tell you, Walker, so you might as well kill me," he rasped.

The room fell silent. For a moment, Sarah didn't say anything. Then, she pulled her gun out from behind her back. "Fine."

* * *

Casey was waiting in the van outside, and flinched when he heard the gunshot. "Aw, goddammit, Walker," he grumbled.

A moment later, Sarah emerged from the house. She marched over to the van and slid open the side door. "Your turn."

* * *

**11:00 AM, Alliance Mean Time  
December 27****th****, 2518**

"So, here's how it is," Mal said to Chuck, once Kaylee was out of earshot. "My first mate, Zoe, she's been checkin' through the Cortex to see if we can find somethin' about you. Interesting enough, we did."

Chuck's eyes widened. "No way."

"Seriously," Mal replied. "We found somethin' addressed to one Charles Bartowski, in, and I quote, the year 2500 or later."

Chuck shook his head. "This is crazy."

"That it most definitely is," Mal said. "Apparently, it's at the Museum of Ancient History on Persephone. One of my crew, Inara Serra, just happened to be there, and she used her, uh, talents, shall we say, to liberate said letter."

"Talents?" Chuck asked. "She's a master thief?"

Mal shrugged. "Well, a whore, more like, but close enough."

Chuck raised an eyebrow. "Riiight."

"Anyway," Mal continued, "there's some weird group of letters and numbers on it. She's bringin' it, should be here in a few hours."

_Weird group of letters and numbers – _Chuck's eyes went wide. The Stanford library code! "Did she happen to tell you what the series was?"

"'Fraid not," Mal said. "Sorry 'bout that."

Chuck shrugged. "No worries. I guess I'll find out soon enough."

* * *

**2:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time  
December 25****th****, 2008  
18842 Dukas St., Porter Ranch, CA**

John Casey marched up the front path to the house of Ken Black, a cigar held between his teeth. He rang the doorbell, and a moment later, the door opened, and an overweight man with a receding hairline and a cop mustache answered the door.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked.

Casey grinned. "I'm Santa Claus!" he exclaimed. "And you have been a VERY naughty boy, Ken Black!"

Pulling the cigar from between his teeth, Casey jabbed it forward, stubbing it out on Black's forehead. Black howled in pain, and fell backward, landing heavily on the floor.

"Now, I have no idea what exactly you did," Casey said to Black. "Matter of fact, I'm not even sure what I saw on that traffic video from Chandler Boulevard." He removed a fresh cigar from his jacket pocket. "But the fact is, I know you did something to him, and you're gonna tell me. Otherwise, I'm gonna have to put another cigar out on your body."

Then, he stopped, as if having a thought. "Or," he said, reaching into his jacket again, "I could just use THIS on you." His hand came out holding a cigar clipper, and Black's eyes went wide.

Casey tossed aside the cigar, and Black tried to scoot backwards across the floor. "Not so fast, Ken!" Casey growled, grabbing the legs of Black's pants and yanking downward. Tripped up by his own pants, Black fell backwards – and suddenly found that Casey was holding the cigar clipper less than an inch from his crotch.

"Aw, fear make you shrink all up?" Casey asked menacingly, snapping the cigar clipper for effect.

"ALRIGHT!" Black howled. "ALRIGHT! I stole a project from Area 51, okay! I knew how to activate it, that was about it! The settings – the whole plan – everything's in my desk drawer! You can find Bartowski!"

Casey smiled. "See, that wasn't so hard, was it?" He stood. "Now, that's everything you know, right, Ken?"

"Yes!" Black cried. "Please, just… leave me alone!"

Casey stopped, and pretended to consider it. "But where would the fun in that be?"

* * *

This time, it was Sarah who flinched when she heard the gunshot. A moment later, Casey came out of the house, a manila file folder in hand and a cigar clenched between his teeth.

"You get what we need?" she asked as Casey climbed into the van.

"I did indeed," he replied. "Oh, and I killed Kenny."

Sarah smiled grimly. "You bastard."

* * *

**4:30 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
December 27****th****, 2518**

The hatch to the shuttle opened, and one of the most beautiful women Chuck had ever seen stepped out. His brain threatened to shut down, as blood began to flow south.

"Hello, Mal," she said, smiling at the captain.

"Inara," he replied.

Inara looked at him for a moment, then shook her head and turned to Chuck. "You must be Charles Bartowski."

"Yep," Chuck replied, not thinking. Then, he realized that he was staring and snapped himself out of it. "Sorry, yeah. I'm Chuck Bartowski."

"Inara Serra," she replied with a smile. "And don't worry. You're not the first man I've had that effect on."

Mal sighed. "Woman leaves the ship for a few days, comes back with an ego the size of Sihnon," he muttered.

Inara rolled her eyes. "Chuck, please do me a favor. When Mal talks about me, ignore him."

Chuck grinned. "Easier thing to do would be to just not get involved."

"Equally wise idea," Inara said, nodding. "Now, I understand you're not from around here."

"You could say that," Chuck replied.

"That being the case, this is apparently yours," she stated, removing a small, flat box from her bag.

Gently, Chuck took the box from Inara's hand. He slid the lid off, revealing an envelope inside.

The envelope was yellowed and tattered. It was clearly very, very old. The ink on it was faded, almost to a light brown. But the handwriting was unmistakable. Chuck would've recognized it anywhere.

_Charles I. Bartowski, Year 25?? C.E. 219 F5U922_

Chuck closed his eyes momentarily, seeing the Stanford library code in his mind's eye. There were only two people who would've possibly known to communicate with him using that code, and the handwriting was definitely not Bryce's.

Chuck lifted the envelope from the box with a delicate touch. Despite being 510 years old, it was still sealed.

He carefully slid his finger under the corner of the envelope seal and tugged it open. Ancient, dried glue crumbled and fell as dust to the floor.

Chuck withdrew the letter from the envelope. After being folded for more than five centuries, it had cracked and split into three separate pieces. Still, he was able to put them together, one on top of the other. The letter itself looked to have been printed on a laser printer, and the ink was considerably darker than the writing on the envelope.

* * *

_Chuck –_

_Fulcrum managed to get their hands on a technology that they shouldn't have had. They decided to use it against you. We don't know why yet._

_We're trying to make the same technology work so that we can get to you, but the people who knew the most about it are all dead._

_Casey and I are working as hard as we can on this. We've had to do some serious covering – the NSA had to destroy a Herder, and we had to put a fake into Northridge Medical Center to convince Ellie and Devon that you were in a horrific accident._

_I know all of this sounds horrible, but we're doing it because you are incredibly important. We're going to get you back, I promise._

_Sarah_

* * *

**6:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time  
December 25****th****, 2008**

"Well, that looks alright," Casey said, handing the letter back to Sarah. "I still think that your plan is insane, sticking this in the CIA archives, and hoping against hope that somehow it finds its way to him five hundred years down the road."

Sarah sighed. "I know," she replied. "But I've got a feeling. I think it'll get to him, and we've got to reassure him somehow. It's the right thing to do."

"Right," Casey said, sounding slightly patronizing. "Well, if you'll excuse me, Ellie's invitation to Christmas dinner still stands, and unlike you, I still have an appetite."

"Unlike you, I still have a soul," Sarah muttered.

Casey grunted. "You keep telling yourself that, Walker," he replied, marching out the door and letting it slam shut behind him.

Sarah looked back at the letter. She read it over one more time, and then picked up a pen.

* * *

There was a hand-written postscript at the bottom of the letter. It had faded nearly to illegibility, and there was one spot where something wet had fallen and blurred the script.

Squinting, Chuck did his best to decipher the writing.

_PS – I wish you were here, Chuck. Christmas just doesn't seem to feel right without you. I miss you. Merry Christmas_.

Chuck looked at the letter, trying to keep his composure. It was a tangible connection to Sarah. He could almost feel her.

Chuck lifted the letter to his face, and imagined he could almost smell the subtle perfume Sarah always wore. His eyes welled with tears, and he didn't even notice Mal and Inara discreetly leaving the room.

* * *

A tear rolled down Sarah's cheek. It dropped off and fell onto the letter, blurring the "Merry" in the last sentence.

Sarah just sat there for a moment. Finally, she lifted a hand to her face and wiped the tears from her eyes. She folded the letter, placed it in an envelope, and sealed it.

She stood and headed out the door, leaving to send the letter to Langley. "I'm going to get you back home, Chuck," she whispered. "I'll get you back."


	4. The Trouble With the NSA

_**Chuck vs. the Future**_** Redux, Chapter 4 – "The Trouble With the NSA"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
Jayne Cobb – Adam Baldwin  
Kaylee Frye – Jewel Staite

* * *

_Earth-That-Was could no longer sustain our numbers, we were so many._

_We found a new solar system – dozens of planets and hundreds of moons. Each one terraformed, a process taking decades, to support human life. To be new Earths._

_The central planets formed the Alliance. Ruled by an interplanetary parliament, the Alliance was a beacon of civilization. The savage outer planets were not so enlightened, and refused Alliance control._

_The war was devastating. But the Alliance's victory over the Independents ensured a safer universe. And now, everyone can enjoy the comfort and enlightenment of true civilization._

Foreword to _A Brief History of the Alliance_, by Andrea Freyrsdóttir, Simon & Schuster, New Vancouver, Londinium, 2514

* * *

**10:30 AM, Alliance Mean Time  
December 28****th****, 2518**

Chuck Bartowski was alone in _Serenity_'s common room, a cup of coffee cooling on the table before him, his mind enraptured by the book in his hand. One of two books that Mal Reynolds had given him from the possessions of a deceased minister who had once travelled with _Serenity_, the other was the Holy Bible.

Chuck didn't feel like reading the Bible was going to help him understand this world any better – it sure hadn't helped him understand the end of the 20th century any better. And so, he had delved into _A Brief History of the Alliance_.

The first thing he had noticed about the book was that it was published by a publishing house that had been around since 1924. He wasn't quite sure why, but it comforted him to know that certain elements of early 21st century Earth were still around.

According to the _Brief History_, the twenty-second century was not kind to Earth. It seemed that in 2114, hard-liners in Israel's government had gone completely around the bend and launched a nuclear attack on Iran. Russia, which had become trigger-happy at the end of the twenty-first century, responded to the attack on their titular ally by launching retaliatory strikes on Israel, France, Germany, England, China, and the United States.

Israel was almost completely wiped off the map. Somehow, Jerusalem survived the attacks unscathed, but Tel Aviv was turned into a sheet of glass. Paris, Munich, London, Beijing, Shanghai, New York, Chicago – all were devastated. And when the wreckage cleared, the six countries that had been attacked came together and brought the full power of their combined military might to bear on Russia.

By the time it was all over, the European part of Russia practically glowed in the dark. The cloud of fallout drifted east and settled over Asia, creating a nuclear winter for almost the entire continent.

The Russian government fell completely by the end of 2115, sending what was left of the country into anarchy and chaos. The various countries that surrounded it – China, Poland, Germany, and all the former Soviet republics – split up what they wanted among themselves. The interior of Russia, however, was left to simply rot.

The nuclear winter over Siberia had a deleterious effect on the global climate. Two centuries of global warming reversed itself in five years, plunging the world into a vicious new Ice Age of lethal storms and violent climate shift. In 2170, Oxford University released a study they had conducted over the last twenty years, stating that it was likely that by the year 2220, Earth would no longer be habitable.

Armed with that study, the President of the United States instructed NASA to begin development of so-called "generation ships" – massive starships, traveling at about half of light speed, that could support human life for indefinite periods of time, until a new solar system could be found to live in.

The Oxford study proved to be almost exactly correct. By 2215, the only parts of the world left habitable were the areas within thirty-five degrees of latitude in either direction from the Equator. Southern American cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Dallas had become gigantic sores on the Earth's surface, while other cities like Houston and New Orleans were gone – long since submerged.

And in 2217, the Great Exodus began. Ten thousand launch sites were set up worldwide, in the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Syria, Saudi Arabia, India, China, Australia – every country left habitable in the world had at least one launch site. Even governments-in-exile – England, Germany, France – had their own launch sites in the Arabian desert.

Each launch site had two starships, each one capable of carrying ten thousand people. Two hundred million people of the Earth's remaining population of just over one and a half billion would be able to leave. Construction would continue on starships after the initial exodus, and it was believed that by 2225, the entire Earth could be evacuated, though humans would have to continue migrating closer and closer to the Equator in order to survive.

However, as the last starships launched from Earth, an enormous, practically globe-spanning storm began to form. Snow was falling on Cape Canaveral as the USS _Challenger_ left the bonds of planet Earth.

_Challenger_ was the last of the twenty thousand starships to leave earth – and ended up being THE last starship to leave. Earth was never heard from again.

After traveling for over two hundred years, the starship convoy reached a solar system that was estimated to be just over one hundred light years from Earth. Miraculously, all twenty thousand starships had traveled nearly six trillion miles without any being destroyed or seriously damaged.

The population of the starship convoy had nearly doubled in the two centuries since the ships left Earth. At the core of the new solar system were four planets that seemed to have Earth-like climates. Two were approximately the size of Earth; the other two about the size of Mars.

These four planets were the first to be colonized – Londinium by the United States, Sihnon by China, Ariel by France and her allies, and Osiris by a coalition led by Australia. Once the population had been deposited on these worlds, the starships set out again with terraforming crews. Armed with equipment developed long before the starships left Earth, they set out to turn some of the uninhabitable smaller planets and moons around the system into livable worlds.

By 2480, over two hundred planets and moons throughout the system were livable. Some were more hospitable to humans than others. Old Earth-That-Was governments reformed to colonize some of these worlds.

However, the Alliance was not pleased by this turn of events. Formed thirty years before by the governments of the United States, China, France, and Australia, it ruled the Core Planets, and wished to rule the outer planets as well. Some governments, though, especially those of Great Britain, Japan, Egypt, and the Republic of Texas, were not very pleased with the prospect of being ruled by the Alliance.

Humanity's first war in nearly four centuries began in 2505, when the Alliance launched a vicious blitzkrieg on planets governed by Great Britain. The other independent governments, however, came to England's aid, and they bonded together, forming a loose Independent Faction.

The war raged for six years. The decisive battle that spelled the death knell for the Independent movement occurred in Serenity Valley, on the planet Shadow, in May of 2511. Shadow had been the capital planet of the Republic of Texas. The battle raged for seven weeks, causing 68% troop casualty among the Independents, and rendering the planet practically unlivable.

By the end of the battle, the armed forces of the Independents were so depleted, the political bonds so strained, that the Faction fell apart. Defeated, the individual governments surrendered to the Alliance.

Chuck Bartowski was appalled. In a way, he was pleased that the United States still sort of existed some five hundred years after his lifetime. On the other hand, it seemed that its current leadership would make the Bush Administration look like preschoolers playing in the sandbox.

As Chuck stared at the book, trying to make sense of the Alliance, Jayne Cobb entered the room and sat down across the table from him with a thud. The "hired thug", as Simon Tam had referred to him, didn't say anything – he just stared at Chuck for several minutes. Finally, Chuck grew uncomfortable, and closed the book, setting it down on the table. "Can I help you?"

Jayne raised an eyebrow. "You called me Casey when you first popped in here."

"Yes, I did," Chuck replied. "You just happen to look like a guy I know –"

"Major John Casey," Jayne interrupted him. At Chuck's look of surprise, Jayne laughed. "Looked through your fancy comm-device thing there when you showed up," he said.

"Fancy comm – my iPhone?" Chuck asked. "How – I mean –"

"Just 'cause I look dumb don't mean I necessarily am," Jayne replied. "Anyway, did a little searchin' on the Cortex, found a Major John Casey, United States Air Force. Got this picture of him, too."

Chuck's jaw dropped. He couldn't believe it. His incredulity, though, turned to laughter as Jayne slid the 8x10 picture across the table.

John Casey, clad in a green Buy More polo shirt, was glaring at the camera. Chuck could almost hear the growl of disgust in his throat. "What's so damn funny?" Jayne asked. "Ain't that his uniform?"

That caused Chuck to laugh harder – which he immediately stopped, wincing as pain lanced through the right hand side of his ribcage. "Uh, sort of," he gasped. "That's his uniform shirt from an electronics store that we worked at. But he didn't REALLY work there."

"Wait a second," Jayne said. "I thought he was in the Air Force. Now you're tellin' me that my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandpappy was some electronic store clerk?"

Chuck's eyes widened. "Not really. Did you just say that Casey's one of your ANCESTORS?!"

"So it would appear," Jayne replied.

"Oh my God," Chuck whispered. "Oh my God, John Casey has kids."

"Yes he does," Jayne said, narrowing his eyes. "That a problem, Spaceman?"

"Of course not," Chuck said quickly, backpedaling. "I just, I, uh, never figured Casey for the family type. He's married to his work, and that takes up most of his time, seeing as how he's an agent for the National Security Agency –"

He was cut off as Jayne rocketed upward, his chair falling over backward. "What the hell'd you just say?!"

Now Chuck was just downright confused. "I said, he worked for the NSA –"

"_Gao yang jong du goo yang_," Jayne spat. Chuck had no idea what he had said, but it didn't sound friendly. "NSA's biggest ruttin' bunch of sleazeballs and rats the Alliance ever came up with."

"What?!" Chuck replied, his eyes widening. "Casey's not a sleazeball or a rat – he's a good man, he's just trying to protect the country he loves!"

Jayne, however, would have none of it. He turned his back on Chuck and stalked out of the room. "Can't believe I'm related to gorram NSA slime," he muttered as he left the room.

Chuck sighed and shook his head. As he turned back to his book, he saw Kaylee Frye slide into the seat that Jayne had just vacated.

"Hi!" she said brightly. "Whatcha readin'?"

"_A Brief History of the Alliance_," Chuck replied, mock gravity to his voice. "Fascinating bit of reading. If you're a fan of tyranny and dictatorships."

"Nothin' like it," Kaylee said with a smile. "'Course, I was only twelve when the war started. Lived on an Alliance moon anyway. War didn't affect my family."

Chuck raised an eyebrow. "I see. How'd you end up on this ship, then? It appears to me that your captain and his first mate are both – as the book called them – Browncoats. Former Independents."

Kaylee laughed and blushed a little. "That's kinda a long and, um, personal story," she replied.

Chuck shrugged. "You seemed perfectly willing to tell me yesterday, in the infirmary."

Kaylee's smile got bigger as she looked down at the floor. "That I was," she said. "Okay, Mr. Spaceman. So here's the thing. _Serenity _landed on the moon I lived on – Deadwood – with some engine troubles. Their mechanic, a real moron named Bender, started hittin' on me at the store, and next thing I knew, I was lyin' on my back underneath the engine –"

Chuck's eyes had gone wide. "See, Mal was right," Kaylee grumped. "I shouldn't've told you."

"No, no, go ahead!" Chuck insisted. "Keep going."

Kaylee looked at the ceiling. "Anyway, make a long story short, Mal walked in on us. I told him exactly what was ailin' his engine, just from havin' been down there and lookin' at it. He fired Bender right there, hired me, and I've been on the ship ever since!"

She looked back at Chuck. "And I think that's enough of that story," she said. "So, what did you tell Jayne to make him go stormin' outta here lookin' like he was gonna cry, or kill somebody?"

Chuck sighed. "When I crashed in the bay, I saw him right before I passed out, and thought he was a guy I knew named John Casey. Jayne went looking for information on him on the Cortex, and found out that he was something like his fourteen-times great-grandfather."

Kaylee's jaw dropped. "No way!" she exclaimed. "There you were, livin' in the twenty-first century, and you had a connection to our ragtag little crew! It's almost like destiny dumped you on our doorstep!"

Chuck laughed dryly. "Believe me when I say, it wasn't destiny," he replied. "It's more like a terrorist group that calls themselves Fulcrum, from what I've gathered."

Kaylee frowned. "Fulcrum? As in, like, the thingamy that makes a joint pivot?"

"Well… sort of," Chuck answered. "It's more that they've been after me for a while, and so I have two government agents who basically baby-sit me. John Casey's one of them – he works for the National Security Agency, and when I told Jayne that –"

Kaylee's eyes went wide with horror. "You told Jayne that his great granddaddy works for the NSA?"

Chuck looked at the ceiling and threw his hands up in despair. "What is it about the NSA that makes people react like it's the plague?"

Kaylee shook her head. "You just don't get it, Chuck. The NSA's evil. They disappear people. They do bad, bad things. You tellin' Jayne that his great granddaddy works for the NSA is like tellin' him that he's some sorta outcast."

"I didn't know that!" Chuck insisted, a note of anger entering his voice. "Casey honestly does work for the NSA! But he's a good guy – he doesn't 'disappear people' – he and his partner, they're just there to make sure I'm safe –"

Chuck's own voice went dead as the image of Sarah appeared in his mind once more. Sarah, gun in hand, charm bracelet dangling, shooting the Fulcrum agent – and he suddenly realized that maybe Kaylee wasn't so far off base here. His mouth clamped shut.

"If you say so," Kaylee replied, seemingly unconvinced.

Chuck waved a hand. "Just forget it," he said, sounding irritated. "Can we talk about something else?"

Kaylee just looked at him for a moment, a nonplussed look on her face. Finally, she nodded. "Okay," she said. "So… I sort of told you how I ended up here. Why don't you tell me why you have to have two government agents protect you?"

Chuck's breath caught in his throat. That was a dangerous idea. A bad idea, one might say. If it were 2008, an idea that could get Kaylee killed.

But it wasn't 2008. It was 2518. Who was going to know – or, for that matter, care – if Kaylee knew the truth about Chuck Bartowski?

"It's a long story," Chuck started. "On September 25th, 2007, a friend of mine sent me an e-mail."

"E-mail?" Kaylee interrupted. "What's that?"

"Well…" Chuck thought for a moment. "It's a method of sending somebody else a message electronically. Where I'm from, we do it over what's called the Internet, which, I guess, the Cortex would be for you."

"Oh!" Kaylee exclaimed. "Okay, yeah. We call that a wave."

"Fair enough," Chuck replied. "Anyway, this friend sent me an e-mail that contained an entire experimental database of intelligence secrets. It was full of images encoded with these secrets that, when coupled with the right software, would allow patterns to be recognized and help create further intelligence."

"Intelligence," Kaylee echoed. "I gather you're talkin' spy-stuff, like?"

"Exactly," Chuck said. "Now, there are a very few people out there whose brains can absorb and process all that information." He paused for a moment. "I happen to be one of them."

Kaylee's eyes widened. "So… then, you can see all that?"

Chuck shrugged. "I have to be exposed to a certain stimulus, like seeing somebody's face or hearing something, but yeah. Under the right conditions, I can see all that."

A look of wonderment painted itself on Kaylee's face. "Wow," she breathed. "That is SO shiny!"

"Shiny?" Chuck echoed her. "Uh… explain?"

"Oh," Kaylee said. "Shiny is good, cool, you know – that sorta thing."

Chuck nodded. "I see," he replied. "Yeah… I guess you could call it cool. I mean, you might think it's cool if you're not the person who terrorists keep trying to kill, and who send you 500 years into the future so you can't be put to use."

Chuck's voice had risen as he spoke, without him even realizing it. Kaylee, however, was very aware of the increasing volume of Chuck's voice, and seemed to shrink back into herself before Chuck's very eyes. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I… I didn't mean –"

"Oh, no!" Chuck hurriedly said. "No, it's okay. I'm sorry – I didn't mean to raise my voice."

Kaylee relaxed a little. "Okay," she said, a small smile reappearing on her face. "Maybe we should talk about something else."

Chuck took a deep breath. "How about… how about Christmas?" he asked. "I seem to have been unconscious for most of it."

Kaylee's smile got bigger. "I like Christmas," she said. "Every year that I've been on _Serenity_, it's been a tradition for me and Zoe to wake up early and make breakfast for the rest of the crew. It's not much, but they always enjoy it."

"Ah," Chuck said. "So that was you making pancakes on Christmas morning. Was that also you singing Christmas carols."

"Yes, it was," Kaylee replied. "I'm just a sucker for the holidays. There's somethin' about them that I really just love."

"The holidays," Chuck echoed. "What holidays do you celebrate in 2518?"

"Well, there's Christmas, obviously," Kaylee said. "And then there's New Year's Day, comin' up here in five days. We celebrate Thanksgiving on the anniversary of the day in October that the starfleet reached the new system. If you're a Christian, there's Easter, and then there's the holiday that don't get celebrated on this ship.

"That would be…"

Kaylee grimaced. "Unification Day," she spat. "Day that the Alliance finished their terrorizin' of the Independents. July 4th, each and every year."

"The fourth of July?" Chuck asked in disbelief. Kaylee nodded. "That figures."

"Does the fourth of July mean somethin' to you, Chuck?" Kaylee asked.

"Yeah," Chuck replied. "That's the day that the United States celebrates its declaration of independence from England."

Kaylee raised an eyebrow. "The irony is overwhelming," she stated. "Figures the Alliance would take a day of good and make it all about themselves."

Chuck shrugged. "So, are there any others?"

Kaylee shook her head. "Nope," she replied. "That's it."

Chuck cocked his head to the side. "So… no Halloween? No St. Patrick's Day? No Valentine's Day?"

"Church has somethin' that sounds kinda like Halloween," Kaylee replied. "They call it All Hallows' Eve."

"Okay," Chuck said, "that's what it originally was. What about the other two?"

Kaylee shook her head. "That's a drag," Chuck said. "Well… okay. St. Patrick's Day is a day to celebrate Irish heritage and get drunk."

"Hey!" Kaylee interrupted. "I've been told my ancestors were Irish!"

"Then St. Patrick's Day is for you," Chuck replied with a grin. "Valentine's Day… well, it was originally a church holiday to commemorate the life of a saint, but in the twentieth century, some greeting card company decided it would be a great way to make obscene amounts of money. They turned it into this holiday where people tell their spouses or significant others or life partners or whatever how much they love them, blah, blah, blah. There's billions of dollars spent every year on cards and chocolates and roses, but if you're single, you're pretty much out in the cold."

"Wait," Kaylee interrupted. "Roses? You mean the red flowers from Earth-That-Was?"

"Yeah," Chuck replied. "Have you ever seen one?"

"Only in pictures," Kaylee said, a note of wistfulness in her voice. "They tried growin' 'em on some of the new planets, but they wouldn't take hold anywhere, so they've died out now. It's too bad – they're real pretty."

"That might be the most depressing thing I've ever heard," Chuck replied. "I mean, I'm not a particularly romantic guy, but the thought of no roses… that's just sad."

Kaylee was quiet for a moment, and then said, "So… do you have someone you celebrate Valentine's Day with, Chuck?"

Chuck sighed. "Well… I thought so," he said. "I mean, there is this girl. Well, actually, she's one of the federal agents assigned to protect me. Her name's Sarah."

As he said her name, he had a thought. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his iPhone and brought up a picture of Sarah – way back in September, the night that he thought he didn't have to be the Intersect anymore. "This is Sarah," he said, handing the phone to Kaylee.

"Wow," the mechanic said. "She is really pretty."

"Yeah, she is," Chuck said with a smile. "And we're really good friends, and we both like each other, but here's the thing. Since she's one of the agents who's supposed to protect me, she has this whole professionalism thing where she can't compromise herself and so on… but occasionally, she lets her guard down, and I know. I just know."

"Sometimes, that's the best thing," Kaylee replied. "You just know."

"I know," Chuck sighed. "But there's a problem. Right before I ended up here, I watched her shoot and kill somebody. He was trying to kill me – so I appreciate what she did – but then, she lied about it. To my face." He looked at the floor. "I mean, she asks me to trust her, but I don't know how I'm supposed to trust her when she's so willing to lie about things like that."

Chuck didn't say anything for a moment. Then, he looked up. "What about you?" he asked. "If you celebrated Valentine's Day, is there somebody you would celebrate it with?"

Kaylee laughed. "Oh, I wish," she replied. "I thought there was. You know Simon?"

"Dr. Tam?" Chuck asked.

"Yeah," Kaylee said. "Well, a few months back, we were workin' on fixin' some stuff in the engine room, and he had gotten hot, and taken his shirt off, and when I saw that, well, somethin' just came over me, and… well… the engines weren't doin' the only thrustin' in the engine room just then."

"Oh, BOOOO," Chuck groaned. "That was terrible. Sex jokes can't be that cheesy!"

Kaylee looked directly at Chuck, an annoyed look on her face. "Hey, I am a mechanic. You want comedy, you go try to talk to Jayne about somethin' smart and intellectual-like," she replied.

"Sorry," Chuck said, holding up his hands in mock surrender.

Kaylee laughed. "Anyway, Simon and I got real close for a few days, and then, no warnin' at all, it was right back to just friends, and it's been like that for months."

Chuck opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say anything, the intercom came on. "This is the Captain," the disembodied voice of Mal Reynolds sounded. "There's a Reaver ship comin' up on our tail mighty fast. It seems oblivious to our presence, and it would be for the best if things stayed that way. Kaylee, get to the engine room and make us look dead; River and Zoe, to the bridge."

"Oh, _xióngmão niào_," Kaylee muttered.

Chuck had no idea what she had just said, but it didn't sound pleasant. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Reavers," Kaylee replied simply as she stood. She was out of the room before Chuck could even get to his feet, and by the time he caught up with her, he was out of breath, and his whole ribcage felt like it was on fire.

"Wh- wh- what are Reavers?" he wheezed as he stumbled into the engine room.

"Madmen," Kaylee said quietly. "Space cannibals. Long story short, the Alliance put somethin' in the atmo of a planet called Miranda, and ended up with Reavers. They get hold of you, they'll rape you, eat your flesh, string you up. If you're lucky, they kill you first."

"Dear God," Chuck gasped. "What the hell do we do?!"

"What I do is work my magic on _Serenity_, make her look like she's not here, then make her run like a mad ox if the Reavers decide to chase us," Kaylee said. "You need to strap your pretty self into that jumpseat there – and hang on."

_To be continued…_

* * *

_The introductory section is the introductory monologue from the movie _Serenity_._

_gao yang jong du goo yang – motherless goat of all motherless goats_

_xióngmão niào – panda piss_


	5. Close Encounters

_**Chuck vs. the Future**_ **Redux, Chapter 5 – "Close Encounters"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
General Beckman – Bonita Fredericy  
Bryce Larkin – Matthew Bomer  
Kaylee Frye – Jewel Staite  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
Mal Reynolds – Nathan Fillion  
Zoe Alleyne Washburne – Gina Torres  
River Tam – Summer Glau  
John Casey – Adam Baldwin

* * *

**11:45 PM, Pacific Standard Time  
December 25****th****, 2008  
Los Angeles, California**

Sarah Walker's Porsche rolled to a stop in the parking garage of her hotel. Switching the ignition off, she sighed and leaned forward, resting her head against the steering wheel.

How had the last two days gone so completely off the rails? First the incident on Christmas Eve, with Fulcrum crashing the party at the Buy More, then today.

"I hate Christmas," Sarah whispered to herself. And, unbidden, tears began to form in her eyes. Today was supposed to be fun. She was supposed to unwrap gifts with the Bartowskis, spend the day watching a _Twilight Zone_ marathon with Chuck, and not worry about being a CIA agent – just for a day.

Instead, she had spent the day doing what she had every Christmas of her life that she could remember – lying. As far back as she could think, she couldn't remember a Christmas that didn't involve lying to somebody about something.

Before Sarah could start feeling too sorry for herself, though, her phone rang. Picking it up, she looked at the display – _Number Classified_. That could mean only one thing – the NSA.

Sarah pressed a series of buttons, then hit the talk button. "This is Walker, secure," she announced.

"_Agent Walker, General Beckman, secure,_" came the reply from the other end.

"General," Sarah said as she got out of the Porsche. "Any news?"

"_No developments yet,_" the NSA director replied as Sarah headed toward the elevator. "_However, we may have put together a way for you and Major Casey to go after Chuck._"

Sarah froze, her finger hovering over the elevator button. "What?!" she asked incredulously. "How?"

"_I can't say over the line, no matter how secure,_" General Beckman said. "_This is classified beyond anything you've ever seen before._"

Sarah's finger had unfrozen, and she was now boarding the elevator. "Fine, that's fine," she replied, shock filling her voice. "Just tell me what I have to do."

"_There's a Continental Airlines flight leaving for Houston at 5:30 tomorrow morning,_" General Beckman said. "_Your ticket will be held at the Continental ticket counter. Show them your CIA credentials, and they'll get you onboard. You'll receive further instructions when you land._"

"Yes, ma'am," Sarah said, in a daze. She ended the call as she stepped out of the elevator.

Maybe she had gotten a bit of a Christmas gift after all. Sarah felt a little bit lighter on her feet as she approached her hotel room –

Wait. Something was wrong. One of the tells on her door had been disturbed – somebody was in there.

Sarah drew her gun and pulled back the slide. There was a round already chambered, but force of habit compelled her to check. Holding the gun tight in her left hand, she crept toward the door, key in her right hand.

As quietly as she could, Sarah slid the key into the lock and turned. She felt the lock give way, and the door swung open. Her gun came down and aimed –

"Oh, for Christ's sake," she groaned, bringing the gun down.

Bryce Larkin looked back at her, tolerant amusement on his face. "Good to see you too, Sarah."

Sarah sighed. "Bryce, now is not a good time."

Bryce shook his head. "Sarah, no. I'm not here for you. We're done. You made that very clear the last time I was here."

A sarcastic laugh made its way out of Sarah. "Well, damn. It's about time you got it."

Bryce frowned. "I'm not joking, Sarah. I'm here because Chuck's in trouble. I found out about this Fulcrum plot that could put him in serious jeopardy –"

"It's too late, Bryce," Sarah said. "They already got him."

Bryce's eyes widened. "Fuck," he breathed. "So, he's gone?"

"Five hundred plus years into the future, if the people we interrogated are to be believed."

"Then we gotta go!" Bryce shot back. "We gotta go right now!"

Sarah held up a hand and shook her head. "Go where, exactly?"

"We have to get the guy in charge of this operation!" Bryce replied excitedly. "He's just up the road, in Santa Clarita! If we go now, we can get him!"

"No."

Bryce looked at Sarah as if she'd grown a third eye. "What?!"

"No," Sarah replied, more emphatically. "I'm not concerned with catching whoever's running the show. I'm concerned with getting Chuck back, which is why I'm going to Houston in the morning."

Bryce cocked his head to one side. "So let me get this straight. Instead of going after a major Fulcrum player, you're going to go off on some hare-brained scheme – and it must be hare-brained, considering how little we actually know about this technology – to try and get Chuck back?"

"Of course I am!" Sarah said, her voice getting louder. "Chuck's a priceless intelligence asset, and you know it!"

"Bullshit," Bryce spat. "No asset is priceless. You know that. You're going after Chuck because you're compromised."

Sarah stood her ground. "I am going after Chuck – as, by the way, is John Casey – because I have been ORDERED to do so by General Beckman." Then her eyes narrowed. "And if you want to say I'm compromised, go right ahead."

Bryce froze. "Wait a second," he said quietly. "You really… he got to you, didn't he?"

Sarah looked at the floor, then back up at Bryce from beneath hooded eyes. "Yeah," she admitted quietly, as she brushed her right hand through her hair.

Bryce's eyes widened. "That – that's Chuck's mom's charm bracelet," he said, noticing the object on Sarah's wrist. "He always swore he was going to save that for the right girl."

"He told me," Sarah practically whispered.

Bryce laughed in astonishment and shook his head. "I never thought I'd see the day," he said. Without another word, he walked out the door, quietly pulling it shut behind him.

Sarah wiped the tears from her eyes. "Neither did I."

* * *

**11:30 AM, Alliance Mean Time  
December 28****th****, 2518**

"Reavers," Kaylee said simply as she stood. She was out of the room before Chuck could even get to his feet, and by the time he caught up with her, he was out of breath, and his whole ribcage felt like it was on fire.

"Wh- wh- what are Reavers?" he wheezed as he stumbled into the engine room.

"Madmen," Kaylee replied quietly. "Space cannibals. Long story short, the Alliance put somethin' in the atmo of a planet called Miranda, and ended up with Reavers. They get hold of you, they'll rape you, eat your flesh, string you up. If you're lucky, they kill you first."

"Dear God," Chuck gasped. "What the hell do we do?!"

"What I do is work my magic on _Serenity_, make her look like she's not here, then make her run like a mad ox if the Reavers decide to chase us," Kaylee said. "You need to strap your pretty self into that jumpseat there – and hang on."

"I fully support your decision," Chuck said, planting himself in the jumpseat and pulling the restraint harness tight. "Please, God, don't let me die," he muttered.

Kaylee threw several switches, and the engine quickly spun to a stop. The noise in the engine room dropped nearly to zero, and the lights went out, leaving only the dim glow of an emergency light to illuminate the engine room.

The low light, however, did nothing to hide the fear on Kaylee Frye's face.

* * *

The Reaver ship filled _Serenity_'s windshield, having stopped practically directly above the old Firefly. "What in the hell are they doing?" Zoe whispered.

"No idea," Mal whispered back.

"Maybe they're playing with us," River chimed in.

Mal and Zoe looked at each other, and then at River.

"You know, like a cat plays with a mouse?"

Mal glared daggers at River. "They ain't a cat, and we ain't no mouse!" he spat.

"SOR-ry," River whispered. "I'll just shut up now."

"You do that, little one," Mal replied. Then, as he watched, a hatch opened on the bottom of the Reaver ship. "What the hell –"

That's when the Reaver ship expelled a massive cloud of detritus from its belly. The debris shot directly toward Serenity. "Oh, _zhen daoméi_!" Mal hissed. Reaching out a hand, he punched the intercom. "Everybody brace yourselves!"

* * *

Kaylee heard a whisper over the intercom. "What?" she said.

She took a step toward the intercom, but never made it. Just as she moved, the deck pitched down and to the right as _Serenity _dropped. Kaylee screamed as her feet were swept from under her. She went tumbling across the deck –

And then _Serenity_ lurched back the other way. Her momentum reversed, Kaylee was thrown through the air –

Right into the waiting arms of Chuck Bartowski.

"Gotcha!" he said, holding Kaylee as tightly as he could.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, _Serenity_'s bucking bronco impression ended. And with the lack of motion, Chuck suddenly realized just how compromising a position he was in.

When he grabbed Kaylee, her limbs had been spread akimbo, and as a result, she had ended up straddling him. Now, she sat on his lap, facing him, her chest brushing up against his, her face just a few centimeters from his – and regions OTHER than his brain were starting to notice.

Chuck looked up, to see Kaylee looking directly at him. Their eyes locked for a moment, and then Chuck realized that he was about two seconds from having some serious explaining to do if he didn't get Kaylee off his lap.

"Uh… Kaylee… maybe you should… uh, check with the captain, see what just happened?" Chuck stammered, releasing his hold on the mechanic and praying that she would take the hint.

"Uh… yeah, right, of course!" she replied, shaking her head as if coming out of a trance. Kaylee slid off of Chuck's lap (with absolutely no time to spare in Chuck's mind), and scurried over to the intercom. "Kaylee to Mal… what the heck just happened?"

* * *

"Okay," Mal said, breathing a sigh of relief. "They're alright down there. That's good."

He hit the intercom again. "Turns out the Reavers were just stoppin' to dump some trash and waste and the like. They're off on their merry cannibalistic way again. Go ahead and power her back up."

Mal turned to Zoe. "You know, after all the hullaballoo that happened after Miranda, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if the Alliance went after the Reavers once and for all. And, much as it pains me greatly to say it, I'm hopin' the Alliance wins that battle."

Zoe gave Mal a strange look. "You know, sir," she said, "I'm not sure if you've finally developed a knack for logical reasoning, or if Inara just has your balls hidden away somewhere."

Mal narrowed his eyes. "Inara does not have my balls hidden anywhere," he growled. "I got no idea why you would even say such a thing."

"Because, Captain," River interjected, "you are what is colloquially known as a 'horny bastard', and because you've visited Inara's shuttle in the middle of the night six times in the last two weeks."

Mal's jaw dropped. "How the – what the hell?!"

Zoe started laughing. She did her best to hide it, but before too long, laughter was pouring out of her in great guffaws. River managed to keep it in for longer, but soon enough, she was laughing as well.

"This is unbelievable," Mal groused, shaking his head. "I get no respect. None at all. I'd be more respected if my ship were run by monkeys."

Zoe and River found that hilarious, and were soon literally collapsed on the floor in laughter. Mal growled under his breath and stalked to the door, planning to head to engineering. He punched it open just in time to see Kaylee and Chuck on the other side.

Chuck looked onto the bridge and raised an eyebrow. "You know, in 2008, we have a term for this," he said dryly. "We call it ROTFLMAO."

Kaylee gave Chuck a puzzled look. "I'll explain later," he said.

She turned back to Mal. "This looks like fun, Captain," she said. "What's goin' on?"

Mal rolled his eyes and growled again. Pushing past Chuck and Kaylee, he stormed off down the corridor.

Zoe managed to bring her laughter under control for a moment. "What – what did he say?" she gasped.

"Something about a bulk order of monkeys, I think," Chuck replied.

Zoe and River burst forth with laughter once more. "Okay, I'm confused now," Chuck said. "What exactly happened up here?"

"Well," Zoe said, trying to catch her breath, "River called Mal a horny bastard, and then he said he'd get more respect if his ship were crewed by monkeys, and – and –"

And Zoe collapsed in laughter once more.

* * *

**12:30 PM, Central Standard Time  
December 26****th****, 2008  
Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX**

"You have got to be kidding me," John Casey scoffed. "This – this is our secret weapon?"

Casey, Sarah, and General Beckman stood before the space shuttle _Enterprise_. "Seriously," Casey continued. "Are you going to stand there and tell me that we're going to go recover Chuck Bartowski with a non-working test vehicle?"

"Far from it, Major Casey," General Beckman replied. "You're going to go recover Chuck Bartowski with a fully operational space shuttle that is fitted with a device that enables you to hop through space and time. It just happens to be a space shuttle that 99.9 percent of the American populace thinks is a non-working test vehicle, which is what you will go back to thinking when this operation is over. Understood?"

"Understood," Sarah answered for both of them. "Now, what exactly is the plan here?"

"The team that was working on this technology at Area 51 believed their work to be a failure," Beckman replied. "However, the NSA had a team working on it as well, and while Ken Black was busy stealing it from the Air Force, we developed a version that can be installed on a space ship and actually be used. The problem, however, is that while we believe we can accurately calibrate the destination time to match wherever Fulcrum sent Chuck Bartowski, we're not as sure on calibrating the destination location. We think we've got it, but it's still something of a crapshoot."

"Well, that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy," Casey deadpanned. "What good does it do us to go to the right year, but end up on the wrong side of the galaxy?"

"Very little," Beckman shot back. "Which is why _Enterprise_ has been retrofitted with a special prototype pulse drive that is at least a hundred years ahead of anything NASA has right now. It's not _Star Trek_, but it's technology that'll get you from here to Mars in three days."

Casey's eyebrows shot upwards. "That's… wow, that's incredible," he said, a look of amazement washing over his face.

"You'd better believe it is," Beckman replied. "Here's the deal. The two of you stay here in Houston and undergo a crash course in being astronauts. A 747 will fly _Enterprise_ to Vandenberg Air Force Base today; you launch on Tuesday."

"A three day crash course in being astronauts?" Sarah asked, incredulous. "We're not going to know anything!"

"Which is why real astronauts will be driving the shuttle," Beckman said dryly. "You two are just deadweight until you find Bartowski, so the quicker you do that, the quicker you'll all be able to come home."

* * *

**6:15 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
December 28****th****, 2518**

Chuck lay on the bed in his quarters, the lights dim. He had been told that his quarters, like his reading material, had once belonged to a minister – they called them "Shepherds" here – named Derrial Book. It creeped Chuck out to know that he was sleeping in a dead man's bed, but he had been assured that Shepherd Book had not died in the bed.

But sleeping in a dead man's bed was not what was really troubling Chuck. He couldn't get his mind off of what had taken place in the engine room earlier. Much as he tried not to admit it to himself, he had enjoyed having Kaylee that close to him. She had been vulnerable, she had needed him – something that never seemed to happen with Sarah. On top of that, he would've had to have been blind to not see that she was very attractive… and, well, his reaction to her, that was all just biolo-

Just at that moment, there was a knock at his door.

"Come in," Chuck called, struggling to sit up without moving his aching chest too much.

And speak of the devil, it was Kaylee. "Uh, hi, Chuck," she said softly, her voice shy.

"Hi, Kaylee," he replied, trying to banish his own shyness from his voice. "What's up?"

She took a deep breath. "Listen," she said, "about what happened earlier… down in engineering… um… I guess, I mean… I just…"

"Don't worry about it," Chuck replied, cutting off the stammering mechanic. "It certainly wasn't your fault that you fell in my lap. You were getting tossed around pretty badly, and I just happened to grab you."

"Okay," Kaylee replied, letting her breath out all at once. "I guess, I'll see you later."

She turned around and headed out the door – and stopped in the doorway. She seemed to brace herself, and when she turned back around, she had an odd look on her face. When she spoke again, the words came out quickly.

"Listen, Chuck, I think you're really cute, and if you'd waited maybe half a second longer earlier to tell me to check in with Mal I probably woulda kissed you and oh God I have to go I'll be in my bunk."

With that, Kaylee flushed nearly the color of her hair, and disappeared into the corridor, slamming the door behind her.

Chuck sat on his bed, a look of shock on his face. Slowly, he shook his head, and then leaned back on his bed.

This could be a problem. A good problem… but a problem nonetheless.

* * *

_zhen daoméi - son of a bitch  
_


	6. Pyramid Lake

_**Chuck vs. the Future **_**Redux, Chapter 6: "Pyramid Lake"**

_**Author's Note:**__ I know this is a rarity for me, but in this story, Bryce Larkin is a GOOD guy. Yes, you read that correctly. He is not a bad guy or even somebody with ambiguous motives in this story. He is one of the good guys._

_Also, you will notice that Bryce uses a CIA-issue universal key fob to gain access to a house. I'd like to thank __**sharpasamarble**__ for having Sarah Walker use that particular device in his excellent story "Chuck vs. the Scavenger Hunt" and putting the thought in my head for how Bryce could break in without leaving any signs._

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Bryce Larkin – Matthew Bomer  
Frank Mullins – Damian Lewis  
John Casey – Adam Baldwin  
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
Captain Omar Yagosian – Olek Krupa

* * *

**8:00 AM, Pacific Standard Time  
December 27****th****, 2008  
28344 Bryce Dr., Newhall, California**

Bryce Larkin sat in his 1977 Trans Am on the side of the street, just north of Santa Clarita. He, for one, took it as a good sign that this high-powered Fulcrum operative just happened to live on a street named "Bryce Drive".

According to the FBI's dossier on their retired agent-gone-bad, Francis Xavier "Frank" Mullins lived by himself here in Newhall. He was divorced; his ex-wife – a State Department employee – and their daughter lived in Silver Spring, Maryland.

At 8:03 AM, Mullins' front door opened, and a tall, pale man with a shock of red hair stepped out. He walked directly to his blue BMW 3-series, got in, and drove away, heading to his job as an over-priced security consultant in Canoga Park.

Bryce sat in his Pontiac for five minutes after Mullins' BMW disappeared in his rear-view mirror, and then disembarked from the old sports car. Moving quickly, he crossed the street to Mullins' house, and using a CIA-issue universal key fob, was inside within thirty seconds.

Ducking into the kitchen, Bryce held his iPhone up to the security panel. It was disabled inside of ten seconds, using a custom-designed, highly classified iPhone app that would NEVER be available in the iTunes store.

Bryce pulled open the refrigerator, and wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Wow," he said to himself. "This guy drinks a LOT of beer."

Snaking an arm in through the many bottles of Bud Lite on the bottom shelf, Bryce retrieved a Naked Juice from near the back. "Three days to go till its expiration date," he muttered. "Still good."

Cracking open the bottle of juice, Bryce strolled into the living room and plopped down in Mullins' recliner. Mullins would be gone until the middle of the afternoon, so Bryce had a while to wait.

Picking up the remote, he turned on the TV and switched it to NBC. "Entertain me, Matt and Meredith."

* * *

**12:15 PM, Pacific Standard Time  
December 27****th****, 2008  
Onboard a modified Boeing KC-135, over Groom Lake, Nevada**

John Casey looked green.

Sarah Walker had never seen the NSA agent look quite so uncomfortable as he did at that moment, the old Boeing airplane diving toward the Gulf of Mexico at an angle that essentially negated gravity within the cabin. "Something wrong, John?" she asked, trying to suppress a smile.

"I hate this crap," he grumbled as the Stratotanker pulled out of its dive and began to ascend. He grabbed onto a strap on the wall as a sense of gravity returned to his body.

"Are you kidding?" Sarah asked. "This is fun! What's your problem?"

Casey gave her a grim look. "If I'm not at the controls, I hate flying," he replied. "In addition, all this gravity to zero-g business is making my nauseous."

Sarah fought to keep the smirk off her face, but it was to no avail. For some perverse reason, it gave her a certain amount of glee to see John Casey in such clear discomfort.

"_Ten seconds to dive_," the pilot announced over the intercom. Much to Sarah's dismay, a slightly evil sounding giggle escaped from her lips.

"Hear that, John?" she asked. "We're gonna be weightlesssss…"

She allowed the "s" sound to hiss out as she and Casey lifted off from the deck. The KC-135 had, indeed, pitched over and was beginning to dive once more.

Unfortunately, the two intelligence agents in back were not the only things lifting off. Sarah came to this realization when she looked at Casey and saw that his skin had turned a particularly unhealthy shade of yellow, and that he was sweating profusely.

"Oh God," the NSA agent grunted. "Oh, Christ, this is not good."

"Aw, come on!" Sarah groaned. "You gotta be kidding me!"

Casey shook his head. "I had a big lunch… uh… pastrami…"

Sarah's eyes widened. "Oh, HELL no!"

She reached out and took hold of a wall-mounted rail. As quickly as she could, Sarah pulled herself to the intercom panel and punched the panel. "Pull out!" she yelled. "Casey's gonna blow!"

As quickly as she said it, the Stratotanker leveled out. Casey slowly drifted to the deck, and crawled to the bulkhead as quickly as he could. Grabbing a barf bag, he stuck his face into it and began retching.

Sarah wrinkled her nose. "That's disgusting, Casey."

* * *

**3:12 PM, Pacific Standard Time  
Newhall**

After watching the _Today Show_ and making his way through the half dozen episodes of _Life On Mars_ and _House_ that were saved on Mullins' DVR, Bryce had run out of things to do. And so, around a quarter to three, he found himself dozing off.

So it was that he didn't hear Frank Mullins come home. He didn't hear him quietly say, "What the hell?" and approach him. He didn't hear Mullins take out his gun and chamber a round. In fact, he didn't hear anything until Mullins slapped him.

The slap quickly brought Bryce back to reality. His eyes flew open – only to discover that he was on the business end of a Ruger P95, and the man behind it didn't look very pleased to see him.

Mullins considered Bryce for a moment before speaking. Finally, he said, "Do you have any idea how many people we have looking for you?"

Bryce sighed. "A whole bunch, as I understand it," he replied.

"Yeah," Mullins said dryly. "A whole bunch is something of an understatement. Maybe the best question would be, do you have any idea how many we've LOST looking for you?"

A grin spread across Bryce's face. "Oh, a few," he said. "Are you aware of the tactical error that you've made?"

Mullins frowned. "What tactical error?"

Bryce's grin got wider. "This one."

Reaching down, he grabbed the recliner handle and pulled, lunging backward. The footrest shot upward, rocketing Bryce's feet directly into Mullins' knees. As Bryce had anticipated, Mullins reflexively fired his gun – but Bryce's head was no longer in front of it. The upper part of the recliner had dropped backward as the footrest had come up, putting Bryce out of the path of the bullet.

Mullins staggered backward, face contorted in pain. Bryce leapt out of the recliner, launching himself across the room. He tackled Mullins, knocking him to the ground and sending the Ruger spinning away.

Unfortunately for Bryce, Mullins had a few inches and a few pounds on him. Despite his CIA training, Bryce found himself unable to pin the FBI-trained Mullins to the ground, and after a moment of struggle, Mullins got the best of Bryce. Landing an elbow to Bryce's jaw, he knocked him backward. Standing up, Mullins staggered toward his gun –

Only to drop to the ground with an electric sizzle. He twitched for a moment, and then went unconscious.

Bryce smiled crookedly as he retrieved the Tazer dart from Mullins' back. "Tazed you, bro."

* * *

**3:15 PM, Pacific Standard Time  
March Air Reserve Base  
Riverside, California**

After the KC-135 landed back at March ARB, Sarah turned her cell phone back on – and discovered she had a message. She dialed her voicemail, and her chest tightened at the sound of Ellie Bartowski's voice.

"_Sarah… it's Ellie,_" Chuck's older sister said. "_I've been trying to get in touch with you for a couple of hours. Chuck… the doctors say he's taken a turn for the worse. If you get this, please call me back right away. Thanks._"

Sarah brought the phone down from her ear very slowly. _A turn for the worse?! Whose asinine idea was that?!_

"Unbelievable," she muttered. It had to have been the NSA, and the fact that they would do this to Ellie, when she was already in so much pain –

"CASEY!" she shouted. The NSA agent, looking a little unsteady on his feet, turned around to look at her. "Get Beckman on the phone!"

Casey frowned. "Something wrong, Walker?"

"Just DO it!" Sarah growled.

Despite Casey's misgivings, he knew better than to go against Sarah's wishes when she was in this kind of mood. Wordlessly, he withdrew his phone and dialed. "This is John Casey, secure," Sarah heard him say a moment later.

After a moment, he handed the phone to Sarah. Without even so much as an introduction, she snapped, "A turn for the worse, General?!"

The silence at the other end was deafening. Finally, Beckman replied. "_We had to have an excuse for the Intersect's family not to see him._"

"The Int- his name is Chuck, for God's sake!"

"_Agent Walker, you are bordering on insubordination!_"

That was just about enough. "General, in case you've forgotten, unlike MAJOR Casey, I'm not military. Take your insubordination and –"

Sarah's sentence hung incomplete as Casey snatched the phone from her hand. "I'm sorry about that, General," he said, staring daggers at Sarah. "Agent Walker's just under a little bit of stress. I'll talk to her and get her calmed down."

He listened for another moment, and then hung up the phone. He slid it into his pocket, and then turned to Sarah. "Are you stupid, or just crazy?" he asked.

Sarah shook her head. "Don't start, Casey."

"Don't sta- don't you DARE tell me not to start!" the NSA agent shot back. "You know that when I got shipped out here, I was in line for a seat on the National Security Council? The NSC, Walker! But they said, 'Go to Los Angeles,' and I went. They said, 'Stay in Los Angeles,' and I stayed. They said, 'Go to Houston, and become an astronaut,' and I went. Then they said, 'We didn't really mean it, go to Riverside, so you can throw up in a tanker,' and I went."

"Your POINT?" Sarah seethed.

"My point is that we have our orders, and it is not our place to question them!" Casey growled. "Now, forgive me if I seem insensitive to the emotions of Ms. Bartowski and Mr. Woodcomb and that little hairy gnome that Bartowski calls a best friend, but I'm pretty certain that a good part of your state of mind here stems from the fact that you have this burning desire for Bartowski's chocolate to get mixed up in your peanut butter –"

And that was the point at which Sarah Walker had had quite enough. One could almost hear the wind whistle across her fingertips as her open left hand sliced through the air, her hand coming to a violent halt as the palm slammed into John Casey's face with the force of a Mack truck.

Casey, still slightly dizzy from his nausea onboard the plane, lost his balance and fell over, crashing to the hangar floor. After a moment, he sat up, and as he did so, gave Sarah such a baleful look that for a brief second, she thought that he was going to draw down on her, in which case, things were going to get very ugly, very quickly.

But the look faded from his face. "Feel better?" he asked, a tinge of sarcasm in his voice.

"Somewhat," she spat.

"Good," Casey replied, standing back to his feet. "Now, here's the thing. You might not like it, but we have orders. Orders that we have to follow."

Sarah didn't say anything, simply rolling her eyes.

Casey sighed. "Well, Agent Walker, if you have no further objections, I believe we need to go kick some interstellar ass."

* * *

**4:05 PM, Pacific Standard Time  
Old US Highway 99  
Just south of Pyramid Lake, California**

Bryce was about half a mile south of his destination when Frank Mullins woke up.

Mullins was in the back seat of Bryce's Trans Am. He had been buckled into the back seat, his arms raised above his head and handcuffed to the support bar between the since-removed T-tops on the roof. "What the hell?!" Mullins shouted.

"Quiet now, Frank," Bryce said. "We're gonna take a little trip."

Mullins craned his neck – and saw the device in the shotgun seat of the Trans Am. "Oh, shit," he breathed.

"Recognize that, do you?" Bryce asked. "Pretty sure you used that to send a friend of mine into the future."

Bryce looked in the rear view mirror to see Mullins' reaction – and saw that the Fulcrum man had gone from being merely pale to being white as a ghost. "You – you can't use that," Mullins whispered. "You don't know what you're doing!"

"Oh, I don't know about that," Bryce replied with a shrug. "Looks like you did a little modification here – a USB port, which allowed me to plug it into a laptop, and it told me exactly where I need to be for the device to send us into the future."

"No, no!" Mullins shot back. "I – we – I never got to the point of seeing whether or not the device would work while in motion!"

"Then we're gonna find out," Bryce replied. "Granted, I'm gonna have to go airborne off the end of a boat ramp, but it's only a few feet, and as long as I'm going thirty miles per hour when we hit the point, the device should transport us into the future."

Bryce paused and narrowed his eyes. "You know, thirty miles per hour just doesn't sound nearly as impressive as eighty-eight."

Then he turned around to face Mullins. "But no matter!"

Reaching out, he pressed a button on the device, and it began to glow. "LET ME OUT!" Mullins screamed, jerking against the handcuffs.

"Jesus," Bryce said, rolling his eyes. Reaching into his jacket, he withdrew his Tazer and shot the Fulcrum man again. Mullins' eyes rolled back in his head, and his head slumped forward.

Bryce smiled. "Peace and quiet," he said. Turning onto Whitaker Peak Road, he started heading north. As he rounded the last bend, he grew irritated with the Trans Am's slow speed.

"To hell with this," he muttered. "I like eighty-eight miles per hour a lot more."

With a roar, the Trans Am rocketed forward, headed toward the edge of Pyramid Lake. As the car neared the designated point, it began to glow.

Looking like something straight out of _Smokey and the Bandit_, the Trans Am shot up a slight incline and went airborne over the water –

And with a brilliant flash, the Pontiac disappeared, the only trace a few ripples on the water below.

* * *

**11:30 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
December 28****th****, 2518  
Alliance cruiser USS **_**Columbia**_

Captain Omar Yagosian of the Alliance Fleet was not pleased. A spot inspection of the shuttle bay was supposed to be quick and simple – and yet, this one had turned into an unholy nightmare.

Not one, not two, but THREE shuttles had been discovered to be in non-flyable condition. To make matters worse, it turned out that nearly half the staff on deck didn't have a clue about emergency procedures.

It was almost enough to make Captain Yagosian throw up his arms in despair and quit. And yet, he couldn't really do that, because he was _Columbia_'s commander, and they were nearly two weeks out of Londinium.

He looked with disdain at the deck commander. "I want everybody in this company to be able to recite emergency procedures, line for line, by this time Sunday," he hissed. "Am I CRYSTAL clear?"

The deck commander looked back at Yagosian, eyes wide. "Yes sir!"

Scowling, Yagosian turned away from the deck commander. He started marching toward the door out of the shuttle bay – but found himself stopped by a sudden gust of wind that nearly knocked him over.

_Oh, God_, Yagosian thought. _Unexpected depressurization. Damn, it sure would be nice if the crew knew some EMERGENCY PROCEDURES –_

But then it dawned on him. Nothing was being sucked toward a hatch. There was just an unexpected wind. Confused, Yagosian turned to look toward the main bay door –

A brilliant flash of light erupted in the center of the bay. A split second later, the distinctive sound of rubber tires sliding at high speed reached Yagosian's ears. In disbelief, he watched as something he had only ever seen in films – an Earth-That-Was car – slid across the deck, tires smoking, and came to a stop bare inches from one of the shuttles.

Yagosian started walking toward the car, then started running. A security officer beat him to it, wrenching the car door open and physically pulling the driver from his seat. "Who the hell are you?" the security officer asked.

"Larkin, Bryce, officer number 40496," he replied, and then grinned. "Take me to your leader!"


	7. Sometime Around Midnight

_**Chuck vs. the Future**_** Redux, Chapter 7: "Sometime Around Midnight"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
River Tam: Summer Glau  
Mal Reynolds: Nathan Fillion  
Chuck Bartowski: Zachary Levi  
Kaylee Frye: Jewel Staite  
Jayne Cobb: Adam Baldwin  
Sarah Walker: Yvonne Strahovski  
John Casey: Adam Baldwin  
Major Rick Lorenz: Michael Biehn  
Captain Michael Tweedum: Jason Bateman  
Captain Omar Yagosian: Olek Krupa  
Bryce Larkin – Matthew Bomer

_**Content warning: SHIPPER APOCALYPSE!!!**_

* * *

**6:30 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
December 31****st****, 2518  
Over the planet Houston, Republic of Texas**

Space was silent and still. The blackness seemed impenetrable – but a flash of light reflected from somewhere.

The ship passed through the blackness soundlessly, a glow coming from her tail, a stream of radioactive exhaust following her. _Serenity_ was headed toward the new year just over a planet that used to be part of the Republic of Texas.

_Serenity_'s underside began to glow as she entered Houston's atmosphere. The old Firefly began to shake a little as she decelerated – and then something not-so-good happened.

A twelve-inch by eight-inch piece of metal detached itself from _Serenity_'s nose and flipped up over the cockpit. Her shaking immediately got much worse.

"Aw, son of a BITCH!" Mal Reynolds groaned inside the cockpit. "Not again!"

River Tam turned around and looked at Mal. "I think the primary buffer panel just came off," she said.

"Well," Mal replied dryly, "thank you for that piece of wisdom, little one. Don't know what I'd do without you."

River cocked her head. "I've never landed _Serenity_ under these sort of conditions before," she observed, as a particularly rough tremor ran through the old Firefly. "Is there anything I should expect?"

"Yeah," Mal said. "It might get a little bit bumpy."

"How bumpy?"

In spite of himself, Mal smiled, the words that Wash had spoken over a year before running through his head. "Oh God, oh God, we're all gonna die."

Mal reached over his head and grabbed the PA microphone. "This is the captain," he said. "Brace yourselves, because the landing might be a little bumpy. Kaylee broke the ship again."

* * *

Chuck looked up from his reading. He had been supplied with an electronic book reader – _no more advanced than a Kindle or something like that_, he had thought when receiving it – and after accessing the Cortex, discovered that Orson Scott Card had written a good dozen books after 2008. As a result, Chuck had some catching up to do – and he was truly enjoying the catching up.

However, when Mal's proclamation that "Kaylee broke the ship again" came over the PA, Chuck immediately found himself distracted. Over the last six days, Kaylee had become extraordinarily shy whenever she was around Chuck. He assumed it was as a result of the incident in his quarters.

Despite her shyness, Kaylee always smiled when she saw Chuck – and then immediately turned a deeper shade of red than her hair. This had led to her becoming the object of some gentle teasing on Mal's part, and Chuck becoming the target of some deadly glares from Jayne Cobb. Of course, Chuck was still on the fence over whether Jayne was annoyed by Kaylee being attracted to him, or if it was the whole "your ancestor was part of the NSA" thing.

Chuck had prepared himself for a bumpy landing after Mal's announcement, but he found that in reality it was no worse than landing in Burbank. Dropping in over San Fernando Road into Bob Hope Airport always seemed like the roller coaster to hell, so _Serenity_'s landing was almost… well, serene by comparison.

Once the landing started smoothing out, Chuck rose from his bed and stood. He headed out of his quarters and took a left, down toward the cargo bay. He arrived in the bay just as Mal and River came in on the upper level.

"This ain't my fault, Captain!" Kaylee shouted at Mal as he entered the bay. She looked downright pissed – not that Chuck could blame her.

"Primary buffer panel came off AGAIN, Kaylee!" Mal shouted back. "I vote that's your fault!"

"Nope," Kaylee shot back stubbornly. "You're supposed to replace it once a year – hi, Chuck – and you're six months behind, AGAIN."

Chuck froze, looking askance at Kaylee. For the first time in nearly a week, she had greeted him without growing embarrassed. Either she was getting used to him being around, or she was so distracted by the argument over the buffer panel that Chuck's presence didn't dawn on her.

"You know the rule, Kaylee," Mal snapped. "My ship don't crash. It crashes – you crashed it!"

Kaylee glared at Mal as he strode away from her. "Alright, listen up and listen good," he instructed his crew. "We are now on the sovereign soil of the independent Republic of Texas."

"That's untrue," River's voice floated softly from behind Mal. "The Republic of Texas capitulated to the Alliance on May 4th, 2511. All worlds that were part of the Republic of Texas became Alliance worlds immediately."

"Darlin'," Mal replied without even turning around, "here in Texas, disagreein' with authority is punishable by death."

"But I can kill you with my mind."

That's the point at which Mal actually turned around, a strange look on his face. "That's just downright creepy."

Shaking his head, as if trying to rid himself of any mental homicide that River Tam might be attempting, Mal turned back towards his crew. "Welcome to the city of Houston, on the planet Houston. Was ONCE part of the Republic of Texas –" Mal shot River a dirty look "- and as far as I'm concerned, still is." He paused. "My home planet, Shadow, was once part of the Republic of Texas, and though this ain't Shadow, it's damn close."

He folded his arms across his chest. "So, one last word of advice when celebratin' the New Year – don't mess with Texas. Remember that, and you're life'll be shiny."

Chuck nearly went cross-eyed. "They still say 'don't mess with Texas'?" he muttered in disbelief.

Mal turned toward Chuck. "Beg pardon, Mr. Bartowski?"

"Nothing… never mind."

Mal rolled his eyes. "Anyway, seein' as how Chuckles here is new not just to this planet, but to the general time period as well, I think somebody needs to keep him on a leash, make sure he doesn't set off a war or nothin' like that –"

"I'll keep an eye on the runt," Jayne growled.

"- so, Kaylee, if you could keep an eye on Chuck?" Mal finished, shaking his head.

Jayne growled something unintelligible, while Kaylee turned bright red. However, she also grinned ear to ear and whispered, "Shiny."

* * *

**5:59 PM, Pacific Standard Time  
December 31****st****, 2008  
Vandenberg Air Force Base, California**

Sarah Walker hadn't been this excited since she was ten years old. Her dad had promised her a brand new bicycle for Christmas.

Her dad had not followed through on that promise. Instead, he had given her a stocking full of candy and took her to McDonald's for "Christmas dinner". It was one of the many reasons why she didn't like Christmas.

Nonetheless, right here and now, on New Year's Eve in the middle of California, she was two minutes away from blasting into space. She was giddy as a schoolgirl.

"_Houston, this is Vandenberg Control. All systems are go for launch; we are t-minus two minutes from liftoff._"

John Casey, on the other hand, did not look excited. Suited up in his spacesuit and strapped into a fairly uncomfortable seat, he looked simply miserable. Sarah was quite certain that he had a white-knuckle grip on his armrests, although she couldn't see his knuckles through the gloves.

"Casey?" she asked. No response. "Casey!"

He slowly turned his head toward her. "What… is… it… Walker?"

Sarah tried not to laugh. "Breathe, Casey," she replied. "You look like you're about to have an episode."

"All due respect to your well-developed sense of calm, Walker," Casey hissed, "but has it occurred to you that we're sitting on top of several million gallons of combustible material that are about to combine to create a controlled explosion that will make the Hiroshima bomb look like a drop in the ocean, and that explosion will propel us into the cold, unforgiving void?"

"Psssh," Sarah replied. "You have no sense of adventure. It's no wonder you drive that old Ford."

"Hey!" Casey shot back. "Don't you DARE talk about her poorly!"

"'Her'?" Sarah asked incredulously. "Casey, you drive a twenty-three year old cop car!"

"How dare you!" Casey growled. "That car is shiny! She's my pride and joy!"

Sarah was doing her best not to smile. "Casey, you do realize that you've had that Crown Vic for five months, right?"

"Shut UP," Casey snapped. "It's hardly MY fault that Bartowski blew my first one away! I had THAT Crown Vic for fifteen years!"

"It's been over a year," Sarah sighed. "Time to let it go."

"_T-minus sixty… fifty-nine… fifty-eight…_"

Major Rick Lorenz, a Marine fighter pilot who had found his way into NASA, turned around from the vehicle commander's seat. "You two ready?"

Sarah grinned. "Looking forward to it."

Casey replied with Grunt No. 3.

"I'll take that as an affirmative," Major Lorenz said. "Mission commander, ready for liftoff?"

"Roger that," Captain Michael Tweedum, USAF, replied.

"_Thirty… twenty-nine… twenty-eight…_"

"This might get a little bit bumpy on liftoff," Lorenz informed them. "We usually don't launch out of Vandenberg because of orbital restrictions, but we didn't really have a choice – it's a classified mission."

Sarah didn't like the word "bumpy." Alarmed, she looked over at Casey. "Please tell me you haven't had pastrami recently."

"Negative," Casey said quietly. "Although… I did have a rather large breakfast."

"Oh, God."

"_Four… we have booster ignition… three… two… one… we have primary motor ignition… we have liftoff._"

* * *

**10:02 PM, Alliance Mean Time**  
**Downtown Houston, Republic of Texas**

Chuck and Kaylee strolled through the streets of downtown, headed toward the town square. "So, what exactly is the big New Year's thing in Texas these days?" Chuck asked.

"Well," Kaylee replied, "they do the 'Droppin' of the Keith' at midnight. It's one of the biggest New Year's parties in the whole Alliance."

Chuck frowned. "The dropping of the what now?"

Kaylee grinned. "Come with me. I'll show you."

Intrigued, Chuck followed Kaylee further through the crowd until they could get a good look at the object that was to be dropped. "That's 'the Keith'," Kaylee told him. "They drop him into a huge bonfire at midnight."

Chuck squinted – and then his eyes went wide. "No WAY," he whispered. "That's… that's Keith Olbermann!"

"That's right!" Kaylee said cheerfully. "Legend has it that he was some sort of tyrannical dictator on Earth-that-was. He started a war in some place called E Rock, or somethin' like that, and the hero of Texas, this guy named Dubya, fixed it all up."

Chuck looked at Kaylee in disbelief. "You can't be serious," he said. "You can't POSSIBLY be serious."

Kaylee grinned. "Don't worry," she replied. "I know it's a load of hoo-hah – looked it up on the Cortex. Thing is, Captain's mighty proud of his home, so we do just like he said – don't mess with Texas."

"Some things never change," Chuck said, laughing. "Texans are just like that in my age – they think Texas is God's gift to mankind."

"Don't they just, though!" Kaylee replied. "My very first boyfriend, he was from the Panhandle Planet – part of Texas – thought he was the greatest thing a woman'd ever had." She laughed. "Maybe the greatest ego, but that's about all that was great."

Chuck frowned. "Mal doesn't seem like that, though," he said. "I mean, yeah, he did say 'don't mess with Texas', but he doesn't go on and on about how Texas is so amazing."

Kaylee made a face. "You've never seen him drunk."

* * *

**12:02 PM, Central Standard Time  
Low-earth orbit, currently over Texas**

"Ohhhhh…."

John Casey was bent over nearly double. A vacuum-sealed barf bag was clutched in his right hand, and his face was a mask of pain.

Sarah Walker felt bad for him, but she couldn't help feeling the slightest bit amused. Here was John Casey, big, bad NSA assassin, crippled by spacesickness and miserable. Nonetheless, she held her tongue – the last thing she wanted to do was raise Casey's ire and give him ammunition for when they were back in a gravity field.

"Alright, folks," Captain Tweedum said. "I'll be engaging the jumper shortly. I don't have any clue what exactly is going to happen, so I would recommend holding onto something."

"Copy that," Sarah said.

"Me… too…"

"Casey says him too."

There was silence for a moment, as Major Lorenz and Captain Tweedum ran down the pre-jump checklist. As she waited, Sarah stared out the window into the deep blackness of space. Never in all her wildest dreams had she ever imagined that she would be in space.

_Sure beats a non-existent bicycle and Christmas at McDonald's_, she thought to herself.

"Device engaging in ten… nine…"

"I'll never eat a pork product again," Casey groaned.

"Five… four… three… two… one…"

Major Lorenz pulled a lever. Without warning, everything in the shuttle turned to a bright, glowing, weird silverish color. Sarah felt odd for a moment – almost felt like she didn't exist – and then, everything went back to looking normal. They were still in space, except –

That was not Earth out the window. Oh, sure, it was a planet with oceans and continents, except it looked absolutely NOTHING like Earth.

That was when a transmission came over the radio.

"_Unidentified spacecraft, this is Alliance cruiser _Columbia_. Release helm control and prepare to be boarded._"

"What?!" Sarah said. "We can't do that!"

Lorenz turned around and looked at Sarah as if she had lost her mind. "Agent Walker, do me a favor. Look out the starboard side there and tell me that you want to run away from that thing."

Sarah looked to her right – and saw a spacecraft that would've dwarfed the tallest building in Los Angeles. "Oh my God…"

"I would say that our best plan here is to do as they say," Lorenz continued. "Anybody have a problem with that?"

"I… do…"

"Duly noted, Major," Lorenz shot back. He keyed his microphone. "_Columbia_, this is _Enterprise_. We have released helm control and are prepared for boarding."

_Enterprise _jerked, and then shuddered slightly. "We must be in a tractor beam or something," Captain Tweedum remarked, his glee ill-disguised as _Enterprise_ moved toward the giant spaceship. "This is COOL!"

"Not… cool… bad…"

Sarah sighed. "Casey, we were sent here to rescue Chuck. Maybe this Alliance can help us with that."

As _Enterprise_ was pulled into _Columbia_'s shuttle bay, Sarah could feel gravity return. Once the shuttle had come to a stop, Major Lorenz unbuckled himself and moved to open the shuttle's hatch. As soon as he did so, a voice shouted up at them from a megaphone below – "_Leave your weapons on the floor of the spacecraft and exit with your hands up!_"

One at a time, the two astronauts and the two federal agents exited the shuttle onto the rolling stairs brought alongside. Casey staggered out, Tweedum in front of him and Sarah behind him, ready to catch him if need be.

When they reached the deck, they were greeted by a man who appeared to be an officer. He wore the old US Navy stripes of a captain, and his nametag read "Yagosian."

"You have an unregistered vehicle," he read from the report in his hand without preamble. "Your markings are years – no, check that, CENTURIES out of date."

Captain Yagosian shook his head. "I wish I knew why my ship was being targeted by crazy people." He looked up at Sarah. "We have to detain you until we figure out what the hell is going on here."

A security officer stepped up and addressed the four. "You are under arrest for operating an illegal mode of transportation," he said. "Do you desire representation?"

Sarah nodded. "Not right now."

Without another word, the security officer started walking away. A detail of six men forced the four to follow the security officer.

After what seemed like an eternity, they reached a set of doors marked "DETENTION". "Look out, it's the breakfast club," Sarah muttered as they passed through the doors.

Casey, the color now returning to his face, rolled his eyes and shook his head. They continued into a cell, and once they were all inside, the officer activated a force shield of sorts. As he was walking away –

"Fancy meeting you here."

Sarah whirled around, certain that her ears were deceiving her. But indeed, there was Bryce Larkin, a grin on his face, sitting on the floor, back to the wall.

Casey groaned. "Son… of a… bitch."

* * *

**11:52 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
Downtown Houston, Republic of Texas**

The bonfire was huge. Chuck looked up and laughed at the sight of the effigy of Keith Olbermann hanging a scant few feet over the flames – and then shook his head at the utter ignorance that had led to this bizarre celebration of the new year.

"I can't believe another year's almost over," Kaylee sighed.

"I understand," Chuck replied. "Odd as it may seem."

Kaylee looked over at him. "What did you do for new year's back in 2007?"

"Well…" Chuck thought for a moment. "Not much. Hung out with my sister, and her fiancé, and a couple of friends…"

He closed his eyes and thought of the brief, but oh-so-wonderful kiss that he had gotten from Sarah at the stroke of midnight – but that image rapidly dissolved into a Christmas tree lot, a man on his knees –

Chuck's eyes flew back open. "The one before was a lot better," he added rapidly. "My sister and my best friend and I all went to New York to watch the ball drop in Times Square –"

"You mean, the thing they got this from?" Kaylee asked, gesturing to the Dropping of the Keith.

"That's the one," Chuck replied. "How 'bout you?"

Kaylee sighed. "It wasn't nothin' to write home about," she said. "Two of our crew had just been killed, _Serenity_ was all banged up, and I was a little nervous 'round River. She was actin' a bit crazy back then." Kaylee looked down at the ground. "Truth is, I got hammered, and slept it off for the next twenty hours. Didn't wake up till the Captain shook me out of my bunk and told me the ship was tryin' to fall apart again."

Chuck was speechless. "Um… sorry," he finally said. "I didn't mean –"

Kaylee looked up with a smile. "Don't worry," she replied. "I get to spend this New Year's with you, don't I?"

Chuck smiled, and now it was his turn to blush. "Well, I gotta admit," he said, "if I was gonna spend New Year's someplace other than 2008, I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be."

In the town square, the raucous music died away, and an announcement stated that it was one minute to midnight. "Did you ever think you'd spend New Year's so far from home?" Kaylee asked.

Chuck shook his head. "I've never been further away from home than New York for any reason," he said. "So… I guess not."

"_Thirty seconds!_"

Kaylee looked up at Chuck, and then down at the ground. "You know," she said quietly, "where I come from, tradition says that if a girl's with a boy on New Year's, she's supposed to kiss him."

Chuck nodded. "Yeah, I'm familiar with that one."

Kaylee looked back up from the ground, a hopeful look in her eyes. When Chuck didn't look away from her, she took his right hand in her left.

"_Ten… nine… eight… seven… six…_"

Chuck lifted his left hand to Kaylee's chin and gently tilted her head back ever so slightly.

"_Five… four… three… two… one…_"

He gently leaned in toward Kaylee, and she closed her eyes.

"_Happy New Year!_"


	8. New Year's Day

_**Chuck vs. the Future **_**Redux, Chapter 8: "New Year's Day"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Captain Omar Yagosian: Olek Krupa  
Sarah Walker: Yvonne Strahovski  
John Casey: Adam Baldwin  
Bryce Larkin: Matthew Bomer  
Chuck Bartowski: Zachary Levi  
Kaylee Frye: Jewel Staite  
Mal Reynolds: Nathan Fillion  
Jayne Cobb: Adam Baldwin  
Zoe Washburne: Gina Torres  
Captain Mike Tweedum: Jason Bateman  
Major Rick Lorenz: Michael Biehn

_**Content warning: SHIPPER APOCALYPSE CONTINUES AND GETS WORSE!!!**_

* * *

**9:30 AM, Alliance Mean Time  
January 1****st****, 2519  
MKV **_**Columbia**_

Captain Omar Yagosian was not having a good day – and he had only been in his office for fifteen minutes.

He was quite certain his ship was being invaded by crazy people.

While reveling in the New Year the night before, he had allowed himself to forget about the three lunatics sitting in his brig. They all claimed to be intelligence agents from the United States of America – which was impossible, because the United States had been dissolved into the Alliance seventy years beforehand.

However, Sarah Walker and Bryce Larkin both claimed to be agents of the Central Intelligence Agency – which, again, had been gone for seventy years, as it had been folded when the Alliance was formed. John Casey claimed to be an agent of the National Security Agency, which COULD have been possible, as the NSA was still alive and well – except that NSA men always traveled in pairs, with strange blue gloves on their hands at all times.

Captain Yagosian could feel a headache coming on already. He was currently searching the Cortex for any trace – any trace at all that he could find of the three. He was getting precisely nowhere when a call from the bridge interrupted his work.

"This is Yagosian," he said, turning on the videophone.

"_Uh, Captain_," the deck officer said, looking abnormally pale, "_you've got a private call, sir._"

Yagosian narrowed his eyes. "Who from?"

The deck officer gulped. "_Uh, the General, sir._"

Captain Yagosian wasn't sure, but he thought that his heart might have stood still. The General was one of the most shadowy and one of the most feared individuals in the Alliance. The General oversaw the deployment of Operatives system-wide, and headed the National Security Agency.

But the General wasn't just any general. Nobody knew exactly where the General came from. Aside from being a sort of robot, nobody knew exactly WHAT the General was. Popular belief was that the General was an android, loaded with a particular human being's memories in a specialized positronic brain.

The General's legend, however, extended far beyond that. Rumor had it that the General had once been a living, breathing human being, who had died somewhere around 2050. At that point, NSA scientists had reputedly placed the General's brain into a form of suspended animation, until the technology was developed to transfer the contents of the General's brain into an electronic brain of sorts that allowed the General to retain the capacity for thought.

Over the ensuing four centuries, technology had developed hugely, and by the time the Alliance was formed, the General once again had a body, was able to move about freely, and was able to take charge of the NSA with a fist of steel – quite possibly literally. And so it was that Omar Yagosian really didn't want to start his day by talking to the General.

"Alright," Yagosian sighed. "Put the General through."

The image of the deck officer flickered, and then changed to that of the General. As always, Yagosian was struck by the odd affectation of red hair that the General had chosen as a head-covering. "Uh, good morning, General."

"_Captain Yagosian_," the General's electronic voice came back. "_I understand you're holding three individuals in your brig who claim to be intelligence agents of the Central Intelligence Agency and the NSA?_"

"Uh, yes, that's correct," Captain Yagosian replied. "What do you know of these three, General?"

"_In a moment, Captain_," the General said. "_What are their names?_"

Yagosian looked at his notes. "Sarah Walker, Bryce Larkin, and John Casey."

That's when something astonishing happened – a smile appeared on the General's face. Captain Yagosian couldn't believe it. In all the pictures he had ever seen of the General, there was no facial expression – just a blank, emotionless slate. But now, there was what seemed to be an almost nostalgic smile on the General's face.

"_Long time since I heard those names,_" the General said, and Omar Yagosian's jaw nearly hit the floor.

"You KNOW these people, General?!"

The General sighed. "_I did, once upon a time._" Then the smile disappeared. "_Here's the important thing, Captain Yagosian. Those three agents have a special open-ended NSA warrant to search for a very important intelligence asset. You are to render them any and all assistance that you can in their mission. Understood?_"

Yagosian shook his head. "Yes, General, but if they are who you say they are, how do I know that they won't assume I'm trying to set them up for something?"

That's when the General smiled again. "_Well, Captain Yagosian, just tell them… tell them that Diane says hello._"

* * *

**10:58 AM, Alliance Mean Time  
Transport **_**Serenity**_

A steady _thrum_ vibrated through Chuck Bartowski's head. And then again. And again.

Swimming upward through an ocean of pain and suffering, Chuck slowly came to wakefulness, realizing that the _thrum_ was coming from _Serenity_'s engines as he did so.

He cracked his eyes open – and then immediately snapped them back shut. The light hurt too much.

_Goddamn alcohol_, he thought to himself. He hadn't felt this way on the morning of New Year's Day since his last New Year's at Stanford.

Chuck attempted to lift his right arm to his face to try to rub his eyes open – and that's when he realized that his arm was stuck under the body of another human being. In spite of the light, his eyes flew open –

A mass of red hair rested on his chest. "Uh-oh," Chuck whispered to himself. He couldn't remember anything happening with Kaylee the night before – but that didn't mean that it hadn't. There had certainly been incidents at Stanford that were either fuzzy or completely not there – thus were the consequences of being in a fraternity.

Slowly raising his left arm, Chuck lifted the covers – and discovered that Kaylee was still fully clothed, and he was still clothed from the waist down. He slowly breathed a sigh of relief, though at the same time felt a tiny pang of disappointment. The relief came because he was not a fan of "close encounters" that he couldn't remember, but the disappointment – _well, who wouldn't be disappointed?_ Chuck thought to himself.

Then, unbidden, another thought crawled into his head – _Sarah wouldn't be disappointed that nothing happened_, an accusing voice sneered at him.

Chuck sighed. No matter what he did – no matter what SARAH did, for that matter – he was going to have a very distinct problem making that voice fall silent.

* * *

**MKV **_**Columbia**_

The three agents who were supposedly from Earth-That-Was sat in Captain Yagosian's office, looking at him across his desk. His head was still spinning from his conversation with the General an hour and a half before, and he wasn't quite sure how to even begin speaking with these three.

"Alright," he finally said. "So here's how it is. There's an open-ended special warrant in the archives of the National Security Agency, permitting the three of you to search for one Charles Irving Bartowski with no restriction."

John Casey grinned. "Hot damn," he said. "Gotta love the NSA."

Yagosian scowled. He did not particularly love the NSA. "I have been instructed to render any and all assistance in making sure that you are able to complete this mission. As such, your shuttle will be retrofitted with a navsat tracking system and rudimentary defensive weapons. We are also installing a set of engines that will allow you to take off from a gravity field without using your combustion chambers. Finally, we've attached a vacuum sealable jail cell to your airlock, so you can keep the man you're keeping prisoner in there. Once the changes are finished, you and your pilots will be free to go –"

"Wait a second," Bryce Larkin interrupted. He turned to Sarah. "How do we know this isn't some sort of a setup? For all we know, Fulcrum could still be operating in this time period."

Captain Yagosian rolled his eyes. "I was warned you might have doubts," he sighed. "So, I've been instructed to give you a message from the director of the National Security Agency: 'Diane says hello'."

As little as it meant to Omar Yagosian, it apparently meant a great deal to John Casey and Sarah Walker. Both their faces took on expressions of shock, and they turned to look at each other. "There's no way," Sarah whispered.

Bryce, on the other hand, had no idea what was going on. "Diane?" he asked, looking from Casey to Sarah. "Who the hell is Diane?"

A hint of a smile reappeared on Casey's face. "Diane is General Beckman's first name, Larkin," he replied. "And I get the feeling that we might have ourselves something of a guardian angel."

* * *

_**Serenity**_

Chuck knew that he wasn't going to be able to stay in bed forever; however, he had been waiting nearly fifteen minutes now for Kaylee to wake up, and if her hangover was as bad as his, he really didn't want to disturb her. So, very gently, he began to slide his right arm out from under her, trying to move her as little as possible –

All to no avail. He had gotten his arm maybe halfway out when she stirred. She groaned softly into his chest, and then raised her head. Lifting a hand to brush her hair out of her face, she yawned, and then smiled. "Mornin'," she said sleepily.

"Just barely," Chuck replied. "It's after eleven already."

A sleepy look of surprise appeared on Kaylee's face. "Wow," she said. "We musta really partied last night, huh?"

Chuck smiled. "Something like that. How do you feel?"

Kaylee shrugged. "All things considered, not too bad," she replied. "Mildly disappointed to be wakin' up with all my clothes on, though. I take it there was no…"

"Not that I'm aware of," Chuck said. "I don't remember anything after about one o'clock, but you're completely clothed, and I'm still mostly clothed… that, and I don't feel like anything's bruised or broken…"

Kaylee raised an eyebrow. "Bruised or broken?" she echoed. A mischievous grin appeared on her face. "Just what kinda dates do you go on, Chuck?"

Chuck laughed softly. "It just seems like a 'Night with Chuck Bartowski' never ends without one or both parties getting injured," he replied.

"Well, that's quite weird," Kaylee said, her smile getting bigger. "But the real question is… you reckon somebody'll get hurt durin' a 'Morning with Chuck Bartowski'?"

A confused look appeared on Chuck's face. "I don't follow…"

By way of explanation, Kaylee swung her right leg over Chuck, straddling him, and then leaned down toward him, kissing him. He responded in kind, and Kaylee moaned softly as his tongue invaded her mouth. His hands took on a life of their own, and had made it up the back of the shirt and were working on the clasp of her bra when there was a knock at the door.

Kaylee pulled away and sat up, a look of disappointment on her face. "Damn," she muttered. But then, the look of disappointment turned to one of mischief.

Reaching up the back of her shirt, she completed the job that Chuck's hands had started on her bra clasp, and after some contortions that had Chuck's eyes about ready to pop out of his head, pulled the bra out from under her shirt. Kaylee then unbuttoned her jeans, ran a hand through her hair to muss it up a bit, and headed for the door, bra still in hand.

Chuck shook his head, doing his best not to laugh – right up until the door opened to reveal Mal Reynolds, at which point Chuck sat bolt upright in bed, his heart seeming to freeze in his chest. "Hi, Captain," Kaylee said sweetly.

Mal had apparently been opening his mouth to say something as the door opened, because his jaw hung open, a look of disbelief on his face. Kaylee tilted her head to one side. "Cat got your tongue, Mal?" she asked, a note of mischief in her voice.

Mal finally composed himself enough to close his mouth. After another moment, his voice seemed to recover. "I'm gonna – well – Chuck, when you have a moment, I need to talk to – actually, I need to talk to both of you, 'bout a job – yeah. See you in a few."

* * *

When Mal walked into the common room a moment later, he still had a look of confusion on his face. Jayne and Zoe both looked up from the table, both noticing the look. Jayne spoke first.

"What's the matter, Mal, did crazy girl work some voodoo magic on you or somethin'?"

Mal looked at Jayne, and his look of confusion turned to one of… well, almost the look one might expect to see on a teenage girl's father's face. "Well," Mal said, trying to pick the right words, "it would seem… that Kaylee… uh, that Kaylee has been in Chuck's bunk."

Zoe arched an eyebrow, a look of amusement appearing on her face. "Is that so, Captain," she replied. "Is that why you look like an overprotective father right now?"

"Hey!" Mal shot back, a hurt look on his face. "I am not an overprotective father! Kaylee's twenty-five years old, for God's sake. I just don't want her gettin' hurt by some _tamade hùndàn_, that's all."

A grin appeared across Zoe's face. "Uh-huh," she replied in a mocking tone. Standing from the table, she crossed to the wall, and put her finger over the intercom button.

"Zoe Washburne!" Mal said. "Don't you dare!"

It was too late, however, as Zoe pushed the button for public address. "Now hear this," she said. "It would seem that our mechanic has been cavortin' with a man nearly five hundred years her senior! If you should happen to observe further such carryin'-on, you are instructed to vidcap it for potential blackmail purposes."

She pushed the button again to shut off the intercom, and turned to face Mal and Jayne, who were both staring at her. "What?"

"Did you have to mention the five hundred years part?" Mal asked, wincing.

"Yeah," Jayne added. "That just seems… wrong."

* * *

**2:00 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
Shuttle **_**Enterprise**_**  
Over the planet Persephone**

MKV _Columbia_ had been orbiting the planet Persephone when they pulled _Enterprise_ in, and had remained there while they had kept the shuttle and its crew onboard. Now, _Enterprise_ had departed _Columbia_'s shuttle bay, and was headed for the city of Eavesdown. Captain Yagosian had suggested that that might be a good spot to start their search for Chuck Bartowski.

Captain Tweedum had been uneasy about Bryce joining the crew. "We don't have a spacesuit for him," he had mentioned when Bryce came onboard. "If we have an emergency, that might be a serious problem."

Casey had clapped a hand on the younger man's shoulder and looked him in the eye. "So don't have an emergency, Captain."

As the shuttle had lifted off, Bryce and Casey had gotten into an argument over the merits of the Beretta 9MM versus the Walther P9. It had grown heated and was getting annoying. Sarah had developed a headache, and she was just about at the point of drawing her Colt 1911 and settling the argument in a rather final manner.

As the two men kept arguing, _Enterprise_ began its descent to Persephone. "Shuttle _Enterprise_ to Eavesdown Docks," Major Lorenz said, speaking into his microphone and ignoring the two arguing intelligence agents. "Requesting approach clearance."

"Enterprise, _this is Eavesdown Approach Control. Do you have hover capabilities, or do you require a runway?_"

"Eavesdown, we are an aircraft type vehicle and will require a runway."

"_Ten-four, _Enterprise_. Please turn to a heading of twenty-two degrees._ _Switch to frequency 191.7 for further instructions._"

"Copy that, Eavesdown."

"Well, how 'bout that," Bryce interjected. "They still use VHF communication."

"Congratulations, Larkin," Casey sneered in reply. "They're humans, they're originally from Earth, they're a descendant government of the United States. Makes more sense than your brain seems to be able to handle."

Bryce rolled his eyes. "Oh, Casey, why can't we just get along?" he deadpanned, doing his best Rodney King impression. "Or is that too much for your peabrain to handle?"

Casey's nostrils flared, and his hand headed behind his back. "We'll get along just fine when you're dead, Larkin," he growled. "I've shot you twice – maybe the third time's the charm!"

"THAT IS ENOUGH," Sarah barked, instantly quieting both men.

A radio transmission cut through the silence. "Enterprise_, this is Eavesdown Tower. You are cleared to land on runway 22 right._"

"Alright, folks," Captain Tweedum said. "Much as I hate to interrupt your scintillating conversation back there, y'all need to make sure you're strapped in and shut the hell up while Major Lorenz and I land this thing. Landing it at Kennedy is tricky enough. Landing it on an entirely new planet on a runway neither of us have touched before is going to be another matter altogether."

The three intelligence agents all glared at Captain Tweedum, but he simply turned around and began running through the "before landing" checklist with Major Lorenz. So the three simply sat in stony silence.

The shuttle remained quiet for the remainder of the landing, the silence interrupted only by the occasional radio call or a checklist item between the two pilots. _Enterprise_ landed without incident and rolled out quickly. A tow tractor drove up to the shuttle, hooked on, and started pulling them toward what looked like a terminal area.

As soon as the shuttle came to a stop by the terminal, Sarah unstrapped herself and stood up. Turning around, she cast a look of death at John Casey and Bryce Larkin. "The two of you need to listen to me, and listen well," she hissed. "Since the two of you seem determined to prove that you're both assholes, I am taking command of this mission. You will do as I say, when I say it."

She turned her glare specifically on Bryce. "And I swear to you, if YOU try anything – and I mean ANYTHING – on me, I will shove my Taser so far up your ass –"

Bryce's eyes widened. "Sarah, calm down –"

"Shut up, Bryce," she snapped, as Major Lorenz opened the shuttle's hatch, revealing an airstair on the other side. Sarah disappeared through the hatch, the sound of her shoes hitting the stairs reverberating through the spacecraft.

An awkward silence filled the shuttle, finally broken by Captain Tweedum. "Jesus Christ," he uttered. "Is she always like that?"

Major Lorenz shook his head. "I do not envy you guys," he said, trying to keep a straight face. "Good luck."

Casey stared at Lorenz. "What, we don't get backup?"

Tweedum shrugged. "Sorry, Major. You're on your own with Psychotic Agent Woman. Major Lorenz and I have to chase down the supplies we need to make sure the heat shield is in good enough shape the next time we come through an atmosphere."

Casey shook his head, and then looked over to Bryce. "Well, Larkin, you think you can handle getting somebody to unload your Pontiac from the cargo bay?"

"I'll do that if you take Mullins out to stretch his legs," Bryce replied.

Casey shrugged. "Roger that."

* * *

_tamade hùndàn_ - f**king a**hole

_**Author's note:** just in case there's any confusion, "The General" of the 26th century is, in fact, General Diane Beckman._


	9. Epic Fail

_**Chuck vs. the Future **_**Redux, Chapter 9: "Epic Fail"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Badger Morissey – Mark Sheppard  
Major Rick Lorenz – Michael Biehn  
Captain Mike Tweedum – Jason Bateman  
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
John Casey – Adam Baldwin  
Bryce Larkin – Matthew Bomer  
The Librarian – Jessica Walter  
Reginald McLellan – Patrick Stewart  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
Mal Reynolds – Nathan Fillion  
River Tam – Summer Glau  
The Curator – Ian McShane  
Kaylee Frye – Jewel Staite  
Jayne Cobb – Adam Baldwin

* * *

**4:00 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
January 1****st****, 2519  
Eavesdown, Persephone**

Badger Morissey was a man of peculiar taste. An unsavory gangster one minute, the next he could be as charming and sophisticated as any of his ancestors from England ever were. He was proud of his heritage, too – the ancient, faded Manchester United flag that hung on the wall of his office spoke to that.

On the afternoon of New Year's Day, he was still recovering from a vicious hangover. He was alone in his office, nursing a cup of tea, when something akin to a jackhammer started pounding on his office door.

"WOT THE BLOODY 'ELL?!" he bellowed, leaping from his chair – and almost falling over from dizziness. Badger took a moment to steady himself, and wobbled to his door, wrenching it open just as the jackhammer started again.

It turned out that the jackhammer was merely his security chief knocking on the door. Badger shot him a dirty look, then looked out at the two uniformed men standing outside his office. "Can I 'elp you?" he grumbled.

The man with the graying crew cut stepped forward, hand extended. "Major Richard Lorenz," he introduced himself. "I understand you might be able to assist us in garnering some supplies."

Badger looked suspiciously from Major Lorenz to the other man. They were both clad in Alliance-issue Class B uniforms, Lorenz' uniform with definite major's rank on the epaulets, and the other man's with captain's rank. However, their uniforms bore patches with odd acronyms on them – both said NASA, Lorenz' said USMC, and the other man's said USAF.

"That depends on wot supplies," Badger said. "Who's your mate, 'ere?"

Lorenz looked at the man with him. "Oh, him?" he asked. "Captain Michael Tweedum. He's my exec."

"Shifty eyes on him," Badger replied. "Like as not to stab you in the back."

Lorenz turned and looked at Tweedum again. "I don't know about that," he said. "You planning to stab me in the back any time soon, Mike?"

Tweedum shrugged. "Wasn't on my list of things to do, sir."

Badger shook his head. "You goddamn purplebellies wouldn't know a joke if it smacked you in the 'ead," he sighed. "Alright, come in, we'll talk about wot all you need."

He turned around and walked back to his desk, rubbing his eyes as he went. Lorenz and Tweedum followed him into the office. "United fan, huh?" Tweedum asked as he entered.

"That's right," Badger said. "And wot of it?"

Tweedum shrugged, and then grinned. "Oh, nothing," he replied. "Just prefer City, personally."

And with that, what little remained of Badger's patience evaporated. "YOU BLEEDIN' WANKER!" he howled, throwing himself at Tweedum – only to be bodily intercepted by Major Lorenz. "Let me go, you purplebellied sonofabitch!" he howled. "No man walks into my office and tells me that 'e prefers Manchester City over Manchester United!"

Lorenz turned an annoyed glare on Tweedum. "Mike, go wait outside," he said. Tweedum departed the office, a broad grin on his face, while Lorenz physically moved Badger back to his office chair.

Badger sat down with a huff. "Bloody bastard," he growled. "Tell me that City's better."

Major Lorenz sighed. "Mr. Morissey," he said, "you'll forgive me for asking, but didn't Manchester United fold in the twenty-second century?"

Badger narrowed his eyes and glared at Lorenz. "So?" He sniffed haughtily. "Keep it up, and I won't 'elp you… find…"

His eyes went wide and his jaw dropped as Lorenz opened his wallet. "Sweet Mary mother of Jesus," he whispered, crossing himself. "Is that Earth-that-was currency you 'ave there?"

Lorenz grinned. "Indeed it is," he said, pulling out a crisp twenty dollar bill. "Tell me, how far do you think this would get me?"

Badger rose from his chair and gently took the twenty from Lorenz. "An old American twenty dollar bill, in near mint condition," he whispered, almost reverentially. "This'd buy you a week with a Companion!" He looked incredulously at Lorenz. "'Ow many of these you got?"

Lorenz shrugged. "About fifty?"

"God almighty," Badger gasped, crossing himself again. "You could buy the entire effin' planet with that!"

Lorenz' grin got even bigger. Fixing the shuttle's heat shield was going to be easier than he thought.

* * *

**Elsewhere in Eavesdown**

A stampeding flock of chickens was the first indicator that something was very wrong. The next indicator was the roar of an internal combustion engine echoing through the narrow streets of the city.

Sure, there were plenty of internal combustion driven vehicles on the streets – motor scooters, motorcycles, even the occasional VERY small car. But there was NOTHING on the streets of Eavesdown that looked anything LIKE the 1977 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am driving WAY too fast through the city.

However, much of the attention the car was gaining was from young men, who were fascinated with it for two reasons – number one, it was the same car that appeared in the Earth-that-was classic _Smokey and the Bandit_, and number two, there was a beautiful blonde woman driving it. Nobody paid much attention to the two terrified men riding in the passenger seats.

The Trans Am slid to a stop in a cloud of dust in front of the municipal government building. As soon as it was in park, the driver's door opened, and Sarah Walker erupted out of it like a small volcano. John Casey and Bryce Larkin, however, remained in their seats, petrified.

After they were quite certain that Sarah was out of earshot, Casey turned around and said, "I have never seen her like this before. What the hell is going on?"

Bryce shook his head. "I don't know," he replied. "I mean, it might be her time of the month or something… but I've NEVER seen her this –"

A sharp rap on the shotgun window interrupted Bryce and caused Casey to whirl around so fast he almost ran his face into the window. "I can hear you, asshole," Sarah growled.

Quietly and meekly, the two men disembarked from the Pontiac. Following Sarah, they headed into the government building. "Can I help you?" a dour-looking librarian type asked as they walked in.

Sarah held up the warrant from the NSA. "National Security Agency," she snapped, causing the librarian to go pale. "We have a warrant to examine the government archives for any evidence of a man named Charles Bartowski."

The librarian gulped, and then, without even being asked, removed a key from around her neck, which she handed to Sarah. "It's all yours," she whispered.

Four hours later, however, the three intelligence agents had found exactly nothing. The archives were MOSTLY computerized, but the computers were slow and less than helpful. "Bartowski would actually be useful right now," Casey grumbled, earning himself a nasty look from Sarah and a reproachful glare from Bryce.

"His name is CHUCK, Casey," Bryce admonished him. He leaned across the desk he was working at and whispered, "You might want to keep that in mind unless you want her to hurt you badly."

Sarah was about to turn back to the computer she sat at, when the door to the archives walked in, and an older, balding man walked in. "Good afternoon," he said. "My name is Reginald McLellan. I've been led to understand you're with the NSA?"

Sarah looked at him suspiciously. "That's correct," she replied. "And?"

McLellan raised an eyebrow. "Where, pray, are your blue gloves?"

THAT was unexpected. Sarah turned to Bryce and Casey, both of whom shrugged and shook their heads. "Uh, we're a, uh, special unit that doesn't employ them," Sarah improvised.

"I see," McLellan replied. "Very well. Anyway, I understand that you're looking for one Mister Charles Bartowski?"

Sarah cocked her head to one side. "That's correct," she replied. "Do you happen to know something about him?"

McLellan smiled. "In fact, I do," he said. "I'm the owner of the Persephone Museum of Ancient History, and I believe that we have an artifact with that very name on it."

Sarah's eyes widened. "The letter!" she gasped.

"Indeed," McLellan said. "If you come by the museum when it opens in the morning, I'd be happy to assist you."

* * *

**8:40 AM, Alliance Mean Time  
January 2****nd****, 2519  
**_**Serenity**_

Chuck was on his second cup of coffee when Mal encountered him in the common room. "You ready to get on that work I mentioned yesterday?" Mal asked.

"Absolutely!" Chuck replied, setting down his cup of coffee. "What did you have in mind?"

"Well," Mal said, "_Serenity_ is a good ship, but she's old and banged up. I figure if we can get the computers runnin' a little bit better, maybe that'll help us out a bit."

Chuck grew an uncertain look on his face. "Mal, I'm not sure I'll be any help," he said. "I'm sure computers have changed a lot in the last five hundred years…"

"Well, take a look at least," Mal replied. "Can't hurt."

"That's true," Chuck said. "Alright, let's go!"

Mal stood, and Chuck followed him out of the common room, to the bridge. "We'll start you with the pilot station," Mal told him. "River, you can fly the ship from the nav console, right?"

River smiled faintly at Mal. "I could fly the ship from my quarters, Captain," she replied. "I'd just need you to be sitting in the pilot's seat."

Mal narrowed his eyes. "You talkin' like thought control or somethin', little one?"

River didn't say anything, just shrugged.

"That's downright creepy," Mal said with a shudder. He turned to Chuck. "You gonna be okay if I leave you here with Talented but Crazy?"

Chuck smiled. "I'll be okay," he said. He rolled the pilot's chair out of the way, then lay down on his back and slid under the console.

"Just call if you need anything, Chuck," Mal said on his way out of the control room.

Chuck wasn't paying attention, though. His attention was fixed on the thumbscrews holding the panel on the bottom of the pilot's station. As soon as he got those unscrewed, he popped it off –

"Wow," he whispered. "Deca-core processors?" He reached up and moved a cable aside. "Oh, come ON! Five hundred years, and they still use PCMCIA interfaces?!"

"What?" River asked. "I don't understand."

Chuck slid out from under the station. "Sorry," he said. "I wasn't even thinking about you being here. It's just one of the interfaces in the computer – it's exactly the same as what we use back in the twenty-first century."

"Well," River replied, "if it works, why change it?"

Chuck shrugged. "I suppose that makes sense in a way," he said, "but technology is supposed to change. It's the natural order of things."

River cocked her head to one side and regarded Chuck curiously. "Neil Postman," she said. "March 27th, 1998."

"Huh," Chuck said, an amused smile appearing on his face. "That's exactly correct. How did you know that?"

River shrugged. "I'm a genius."

"I see," Chuck replied, laughing. "Well, genius, I need to get back to this computer."

Lying back down, he slid back under the console, but just as he was about to unplug the hard drive from the motherboard, River spoke again. "Did you and Kaylee have sex?"

Chuck tried to sit up, forgetting that he was underneath the console, and moved so quickly that he smashed his face into the bottom of the console. "Ow, DAMN!"

* * *

**9:15 AM, Alliance Mean Time  
Persephone Museum of Ancient History**

"Welcome, welcome!" Reginald McLellan greeted Sarah, Bryce, and Casey as they entered the front doors of the museum. "My curator just arrived – we can go speak with him about the letter."

The four entered the curator's office a moment later. It was a dim, dusty place, full of artifacts, books, and other junk. He looked up and squinted. "Who the hell are these people, Reg?" he wheezed.

McLellan sighed. "Allow me to apologize in advance for my curator," he said. "He's a bit eccentric."

"I'm a hundred forty-two years old," the curator snapped. "I'm ALLOWED to be eccentric."

"Wha…" Casey's jaw dropped. "Did you just say that you're a hundred and forty-two years old?!"

Reginald McLellan turned a curious look on Casey. "It's not uncommon, Major," he said. "I'm a hundred and eight myself. I'd guess you to be somewhere in your mid-seventies."

"My mid – what?!"

"Are we going to argue about age, or did you have a purpose for coming here?" the curator asked crankily.

"Ah, yes," McLellan replied, turning back toward the curator. "These people are here to see the Bartowski letter."

The curator snorted. "Tough shit."

"Excuse me?!" Sarah asked angrily. "What the hell do you mean, 'Tough shit'?!"

"It's not here anymore," the curator replied with a shrug. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to att-"

His voice cut off as Sarah hauled him out of his chair by his collar, dragging him over his desk till his nose was practically touching hers. "Where IS IT?" she hissed.

"A Companion," the curator squeaked. "A Companion came and talked me out of it!"

"Oh, good Lord," McLellan sighed. Sarah released the curator, and turned toward the museum's owner.

"Please, tell me it wasn't Inara Serra," McLellan said to his curator.

The curator grinned crookedly. "What can I say?" he replied. "I'm not dead!"

Sarah looked from McLellan to the curator and back. "What the hell is a Companion?" she asked. "And how the hell did she talk YOU out of the letter?"

McLellan opened his mouth to reply, but the curator spoke first. "A Companion's a space whore," he said crassly. "And how do you think she got the letter?"

"Oh, for God's sake," Sarah said in frustration. She turned back to McLellan. "You seem to know this woman."

"Yes, Inara Serra," he said again. "She's a somewhat… itinerant… Companion. She travels about in a short range shuttle, and refuses to disclose what ship she's actually attached to." He grimaced. "I think she's afraid it'll drive down clientele."

"So how do we find out where she is?" Bryce asked, speaking for the first time since entering the museum.

"Well," McLellan replied, "your best bet would be to check with the Companions' Guild."

"And where, pray tell, is the Companions' Guild?" Casey asked.

"Oh, it's on Sihnon," McLellan said. "Grandest structure on the planet. No more than two weeks' travel from here. Not bad at all, really."

* * *

_**Serenity**_

Chuck strode into the cargo bay, keys to the Herder in hand. He had run into a bit of a hitch with the motherboard in the pilot's station computer, and needed some of his equipment.

As he entered, he noticed that the Herder's front end was up on jacks. The body appeared to be in decent shape, although it was still short a windshield and a driver's window. Then, he noticed something else.

"My car has grown legs!" he called out jokingly.

Kaylee slid out from underneath the Herder. Her hair was mussed, and grease covered her face and hands, but a brilliant smile still illuminated her face when she saw Chuck. "Hi there!"

Chuck grinned. "So, what's the damage?"

Kaylee made a face and blew out her breath. "Your torque converter's blown," she replied. "You've got a couple of toasted fuel injectors and a bad timing belt. Looks like all that damage happened when you popped in here." Then her face brightened. "But on the bright side, the transmission's shiny!"

Chuck crossed his arms. "What's with 'shiny'?" he asked. "That's the second time I've heard you say it."

"Means things are good," Kaylee replied. "Well, better'n good, I guess." She grinned. "Like you."

Chuck blushed and looked at the deck. "Well… if that's the case… I guess you're pretty shiny too."

He looked back up and noticed that Kaylee, too, had turned bright red, although her smile had not gotten any smaller. However, as she looked at Chuck, her smile faded. "What happened to you?" she asked, a look of concern growing on her face.

Chuck frowned. "What?"

Standing up, Kaylee crossed to him, and gently ran her fingers over his forehead. "OW!" Chuck complained.

"You've got a big ol' bump, and a nasty cut on your forehead," Kaylee said worriedly. "You should have Simon take a look."

Chuck shook his head. "I'll be fine," he replied. "I just hit my head on the bottom of the pilot's station."

"You hit your – how the heck did you accomplish that?!"

"Wellll…" Chuck made a face. "River sort of asked if you and I were having sex."

Kaylee's mouth fell open. "Oh," she said quietly. "Um, what did you tell her?"

"I sort of hemmed and hawed for a moment, and then she told me that she knew we weren't –"

"Because she can read your mind," Kaylee sighed.

"Yeah, but she apparently just wanted to be courteous and ask."

Kaylee shook her head. "I may have to talk to that girl about what is and isn't appropriate to ask."

Chuck grinned. "Good luck with that," he said, continuing his trek toward the Herder. Going around the back end, he pulled the tailgate handle and opened the hatchback of the Toyota. Opening the compartment in the floor, he retrieved his tool kit and a container of zip ties. He closed the compartment again and turned back around –

And found himself being pushed backward into the Herder by a much smaller woman. As Chuck sat down, Kaylee sat herself down on his lap and kissed him hungrily. Chuck responded in kind, and had just started to reach out a hand to fold down the back seat of the Herder when he heard a loud wolf whistle from up above.

Chuck broke the kiss, and looked out the window of the Yaris, to see Jayne Cobb leering at them from the catwalk above. "Aw, c'mon, don't stop on my account!" he complained.

Chuck looked at Kaylee with a smile, and shook his head. "I'm sure we'll continue this discussion another time."

* * *

**12:30 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
Eavesdown Docks**

Captain Tweedum was running a test on _Enterprise_'s newly repaired heat shield, to ensure that the glue had cured properly, when he heard it – the roar of a Chevy 350 small-block V8. As the sound echoed across the airfield, he turned and saw the black speck, which was rapidly growing in size.

"Hey, Major!" he called up. Lorenz stuck his head out the hatch. "We've got incoming!"

Lorenz frowned. "Hostile?"

Tweedum shrugged. "I think that depends on Agent Walker's mood."

"Oh," Lorenz replied. "Joy."

A moment later, the Trans Am power-slid to a stop in a cloud of dust. "THAT'S IT!" Bryce Larkin roared as he popped out of the shotgun door. "You are NEVER touching my car again, you crazy bi-"

"I wouldn't," John Casey interrupted him. "She's liable to shoot you."

"Two weeks," Sarah Walker growled as she marched up the stairs into the shuttle. "Two FUCKING weeks. Unbelievable."

Rick Lorenz looked down at John Casey as Sarah stormed past him into the shuttle. "The hell?!"

Casey just shook his head. "How long till we can take off?"

Captain Tweedum shrugged. "Hour, hour and a half," he replied. "Heat shield's done… what's she going on about two weeks?"

"We have to go to a planet called Sihnon," Casey replied. "It should be in that computer the Alliance installed – supposedly, it's two weeks away."

"Ah," Tweedum said. "Then it's gonna be more like two hours till we can leave, unless you want to eat Spam the whole way."

"No possible way in hell," Casey said. "Take your time gettin' food. Agent Walker isn't going anywhere."

Lorenz shook his head. "We're gonna get to know each other real well, aren't we?"

Casey looked at the sky. "I'm afraid so."


	10. Sounds of Laughter, Shades of Life

_**Chuck vs. the Future**_** Redux, Chapter 10 – "Sounds of Laughter, Shades of Life"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
River Tam – Summer Glau  
Mal Reynolds – Nathan Fillion  
Jayne Cobb – Adam Baldwin  
Simon Tam – Sean Maher  
Zoe Washburne – Gina Torres  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
Kaylee Frye – Jewel Staite  
Major Rick Lorenz – Michael Biehn  
Captain Mike Tweedum – Jason Bateman  
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
John Casey – Adam Baldwin  
Bryce Larkin – Matthew Bomer  
Alexandra Forrest – Tricia Helfer  
Reginald McLellan – Patrick Stewart  
Frank Mullins – Damian Lewis

_**CONTENT WARNING: On a scale of 1 to 10, this chapter's Shipper Apocalypse rating is somewhere around JILL!**_

* * *

**2:00 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
January 16****th****, 2519  
Eavesdown, Persephone**

River Tam had become quite the expert at piloting _Serenity_ in the last year. Though nobody would ever admit it, she was far more of a "leaf on the wind" than Wash had ever been. She could outrun a Reaver ship like it was standing still, and Alliance patrols made no difference to her.

Nonetheless, Mal Reynolds had firmly parked himself in the navigator's seat of the cockpit as _Serenity_ approached Eavesdown Docks. Expert pilot or not, _Serenity_ was his ship, and he would be damned if anything happened to her while landing – especially on as sketchy a planet as Persephone.

Oh, sure, Persephone tried to pass itself off as civilized – "last outpost of the British Empire", people said – but Mal had gotten into a duel on this planet. A DUEL, for God's sake. With SWORDS.

Needless to say, Mal was less than enamored with Persephone. It was why he always carried an extra sidearm when he was on the planet. It was also why there was no POSSIBLE way that Chuck Bartowski was going to take Kaylee Frye off his ship on this planet without a gun.

"_Transport _Serenity_, you are cleared for docking in berth 32I_," a controller's voice echoed through the cockpit.

"Copy that," River replied. "Commencing docking procedures."

Mal sighed and rose from his chair. "You got this, little one?"

River turned to him and smiled. "I'm fine, Captain. Go give Chuck a piece of your mind."

Mal glared at River. "Stop reading my mind," he grumbled. "It's creepy."

"You've got a fascinating mind, though," River replied with a grin. "Especially when you think about Ina-"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence!" Mal called over his shoulder as he stalked out of the cockpit. _Damn psychic,_ he thought as he walked down the hall – although his thoughts were rapidly occupied by a disturbing sight.

"Jayne!" he hollered. "Do I need to make it a standing order? No grenades!"

Jayne's face fell. "Aw, but Mal!" He held a grenade in the air. "You tellin' me you're gonna give spaceboy a gun, but I can't take my friends along with me?"

Mal stopped in front of Jayne and looked him in the eye. "Listen to me very carefully," he said. "The day we land on Londinium to go give the Parliament a piece of our minds, then you can take grenades. But until then – NO GRENADES!"

Jayne grunted unhappily. "Whatever you say, Mal."

Mal continued through his ship, stopping in the infirmary to get inoculated against whatever bugs might be crawling around Persephone. "You do know that it's redundant for us to do this every time we land on Persephone, right?" Zoe asked deadpan as he entered. "Or so Simon tells me."

"The body metabolizes the vaccine," Simon insisted. "It stays around for a long time."

Mal turned an amused look on Simon. "Look, Dr. Pretty Boy," he said. "I landed on Persephone once, got inoc'd. Next time, I didn't, and I wound up sick and in pain for the next two weeks."

Zoe smiled. "Think that might've had more to do with that girl you picked up at that ridiculous pub, Captain," she said.

"Traitor," Mal grumbled as he rolled up his sleeve.

A moment later, he exited the infirmary, holding a gauze pad against the injection site. A few steps down the hall, and he was in front of Chuck's quarters, which Chuck himself was just emerging from.

"Afternoon, Chuck," Mal said, falling into step next to Chuck. "If you're plannin' to take Kaylee anywhere on this rock, you'll be takin' this with you."

Reaching into his belt, Mal withdrew what looked to Chuck to be a Smith & Wesson .38, but which had a stamp on it that said **BLUE SUN**. "Ah, I don't think that's such a good idea," Chuck said with a nervous laugh.

Mal sighed. "Not that hard, Chuck," he said. "You aim. You pull the trigger. A bullet departs, and if you can aim anything better than a six year old, your target drops."

"Mal," Chuck replied, "the last time I tried to handle a gun, I managed to eject the clip while trying to turn off the safety."

"Which is why I'm givin' you a revolver," Mal said patiently. "Almost completely idiotproof."

Chuck sighed. "Alright," he replied, holding out his hand. Mal slapped the gun into his hand. Chuck took the gun, and tried to slide it into the back of his waistband – just like he had seen Sarah do a hundred times before.

Unfortunately for Chuck, a .38 isn't nearly as big as the Colt 1911 that Sarah carried – and his pants were far looser than hers ever were. And so, the little replica Smith & Wesson revolver slid straight down Chuck's left pant leg, hit the deck, and discharged. The bullet pinged off the bulkhead, sending both men diving for cover.

"_Zhen daoméi_!" Mal shouted. "What the hell?!"

"I TOLD you it was a bad idea!" Chuck shot back.

As he spoke, Kaylee came running into the corridor. "_Shénme dou shìdàng ma_?!" she asked, alarmed. "I heard gunfire –"

"That would be this _bèndàn_ right here," Mal growled, pointing at Chuck.

"Hey!" Chuck shot back. "_Bìzui, tamade hùndàn_! You're the one responsible for me imitating Plaxico Burress!"

Mal and Kaylee both looked at Chuck, incredulous, neither of them even wondering who the hell Chuck was talking about. "When in the blue hell did you start speaking Chinese?!" Mal demanded.

Chuck shrugged, a grin on his face. "I cheated," he replied.

"And what the hell does that mean?"

Chuck's grin got even bigger. "That would be my secret."

Mal's eyes narrowed, but before the argument could escalate, Kaylee stepped between them. "Chuck, give me the gun," she said quietly. Chuck did so, without argument, and she slid it into a pocket. "Now, come with me," she continued. "I have something to show you, and Captain Tightpants doesn't need to come along."

"I have the feeling I wouldn't want to come along," Mal mumbled as he walked the other direction.

"Ignore him," Kaylee said as she and Chuck walked toward the cargo bay. "He's just in one of those moods."

"Might be because he almost got shot," Chuck replied.

"Nah," Kaylee said. "He's been shot before. I think it's more because he's rather protective of me."

"Well, that would explain why he tried to give me the gun," Chuck said. "Said he didn't want me taking you off the ship without it."

Kaylee smiled. "See? He's sweet, in his own, very strange way."

However, Chuck had stopped listening. "No WAY," he whispered, as he walked into the cargo bay.

Sitting in the center of the bay was a 2007 Toyota Yaris. Red and white, it was decorated in the color scheme and trim of Buy More's Nerd Herd – and it looked like it had just come off a showroom floor. It had been polished to the point that it reflected light, and the windshield and driver's window had been replaced.

"How?" Chuck asked, incredulous. "When?!"

Kaylee shrugged. "I've had two weeks of travel to take care of it," she said. "You'd be amazed at what you can do in two weeks. Changed out all the fluids, filled it up with 97 octane petrolate -"

Chuck turned to Kaylee, a huge grin on his face, and interrupted her. "You are absolutely amazing, _baobèi_," he said, and then kissed her.

He pulled away, and then headed toward the Herder. He didn't even notice that Kaylee was frozen where he had left her, a stunned smile on her face.

Chuck pulled the Herder's keys from his pocket, hitting the unlock button. The horn beeped briefly, the turn signals flashed, and the doors unlocked. He pulled open the driver's door, sat down, and put the key in the ignition. He turned the key, and the Yaris' little 1.8 liter engine purred to life like it was brand new.

"AWESOME!" Chuck boomed. He rolled down the windows, and put the Yaris into drive. Cranking the steering wheel over to the left, he pulled a very tight donut, leaving skid marks across the deck of _Serenity_'s cargo bay.

He brought the Herder to a quick stop next to Kaylee, whose smile had gone from stunned to very pleased. She leaned into the car, kissed Chuck, and asked, "Where you headed, stranger?"

* * *

**2:20 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
Madrassa, Sihnon**

The belly of _Enterprise_ glowed as she sailed into the atmosphere of the more Asian-influenced of the two core planets. "Shuttle _Enterprise_ to Madrassa Control," Major Lorenz spoke into his microphone. "We are requesting clearance for landing."

There was a brief crackle of static, and then control came back. "Enterprise_, copy. Please state your business in Madrassa_."

"We are a diplomatic mission to Alderaan," Captain Tweedum cracked. Major Lorenz grinned, and keyed his microphone.

"Military shuttle carrying two representatives of the National Security Agency," he said. "They have an appointment with the head of the Companions' Guild."

"_Copy,_ Enterprise. _Please hold._"

Sarah Walker cocked her head at the request. "Weird," she said quietly. "I wonder why we're being asked to hold?"

Bryce Larkin turned his head and exchanged a look with John Casey. Halfway between Persephone and Sihnon, Casey had begun spiking everything Sarah ate or drank with tiny doses of an extraordinarily powerful tranquilizer. As a result, for the last week, Sarah had been as docile as a woman could be. Consequently, the _Enterprise_ crew had all been much, much happier.

"Enterprise, _this is Madrassa Control. You are cleared to land on runway 74 right. After landing, please taxi immediately to the VIP terminal._"

"Huh," Tweedum said. "VIP terminal? They must've expected you."

"Yeah, well, it's kind of blowing our low profile," Casey grumbled.

_Enterprise_ touched down on the runway gently and rolled out quickly. Major Lorenz pulled her nose around to the left, bringing the space shuttle to a stop next to –

"Is that a red carpet?" Bryce asked in disbelief.

"Unbelievable," Casey said, as he reached into his pocket. Coming out with a quarter, he said, "Call it, Larkin."

"Heads," Bryce replied, as the quarter fell to the deck.

Tails. Casey grinned. "Looks like it's your turn to take Mullins for his walk," he said.

Bryce sighed. He didn't want to take the Fulcrum man for a walk.

* * *

_**Serenity**_

Chuck had turned the Herder toward the ramp out of the cargo bay, and was about to accelerate out into the streets of Eavesdown, when he heard a shout. "_Wèi_!" River Tam shouted. "Chuck! Don't forget your communicator!"

To Chuck's astonishment, River was holding his iPhone. "River, it won't work here," he said, confused. "I mean, thanks, but –"

He was cut off by the theme from the BBC's _Torchwood_ echoing through the bay. "That's impossible," he said, stunned. Nonetheless, he hit the "talk" button and brought the phone to his ear. "Hello?"

"_Since you can't seem to handle a gun, I thought maybe a workin' communications device would be in order_," he heard Mal Reynolds say.

"Right," Chuck said. "Uh, thanks."

He ended the call and turned to River. "How, exactly…"

River shrugged. "Just moved around a few wires, made it capable of receiving signals from the ship." She grinned. "It should still work with your AT&T network, too, whatever that is."

Chuck smiled. "You really are a genius, aren't you?"

"I try," River replied.

Chuck shook his head and took his foot off the brake. He waved at River as the Herder rolled forward, and then he accelerated out of the ship. "Betcha Steve Jobs never thought that was possible," he said.

Kaylee looked at him strangely. "Steve Jobs?" she asked. "You mean, the guy who started Apple?"

Almost as quickly as he had accelerated, Chuck brought the Yaris to a halt, turning to Kaylee in shock. "You know who Steve Jobs was?"

"Sure!" Kaylee said. "No Steve Jobs, no Apple. No Apple, no Blue Sun. No Blue Sun, no Alliance."

"Unbelievable," Chuck muttered, taking his foot off the brake again. "And here I always thought it would be Microsoft that would take over the world."

"Oh, don't you worry 'bout that," Kaylee said. "Microsoft owns the computer market."

"Never mind," Chuck grumbled. Reaching out, he snagged the Herder's iPod cable and unspooled it. Plugging it into the bottom of his iPhone, he pulled up iTunes and handed the phone to Kaylee. "Go through here, pick out a song. It operates by touch."

Kaylee took the phone and looked at it, almost reverently. "Hard to believe this is five hundred years old," she said quietly. "It's technology better than what we got on _Serenity_!"

She scrolled through iTunes quickly, muttering band names as she went. Chuck overheard her whisper _Arcade Fire_ and _Bad Religion_, and then –

"Who were the Bee Attles?"

Chuck frowned. "The who?" He turned his head slightly. "Wait a second, you mean the Beatles?"

"Spelled B-E-A-T-L-E-S?" Kaylee asked.

"Yeah, that's right!" Chuck said. "How have you never heard of the Beatles? They were one of the most influential bands – well, ever!"

Kaylee cocked her head to the side. "Where were they from?"

"They were a British band –"

"Then that's why," Kaylee interrupted him. "During the war, the Alliance made anything to do with the Independents illegal. The British Empire was part of the Coalition, so –"

"Okay, that just sucks," Chuck said. "Seriously. They were amazing. You need to pick one of their songs."

Kaylee scrolled through Chuck's massive collection of Beatles songs for a moment, and then stopped. "Hmm. This song looks strangely appropriate."

She tapped the iPhone, and a moment later, John Lennon's voice poured into the car. "_Words are flying out like endless rain into a paper cup… they slither while they pass, they slip away across the universe…_"

Chuck grinned. "Unbelievably appropriate," he said. "'Across the Universe' is a great song as it is. They actually made a movie based on it. It's kinda trippy, but it – oh, hey! Look at that!"

He swerved to the side of the road, bringing the Herder to a halt. "What's going on?" Kaylee asked.

Chuck leaned across her and pointed. They had stopped in front of a store with the sign _Earth-That-Was Antiques_ painted in the window. "THAT's what's going on," Chuck replied.

* * *

**Companions' Guild  
Madrassa, Sihnon**

"Major Casey, Agent Walker, sorry to keep you waiting," a striking woman said, walking into the room. "My name is Alexandra Forrest. I am the director of the Companions' Guild. I understand you're inquiring about one of our Companions?"

"That's correct," Sarah replied. "We're looking for a Companion by the name of Inara Serra. We were told that she's something of an itinerant Companion?"

Director Forrest nodded. "Yes, indeed," she replied. "She was one of the best students here, and were it not for her inexplicable need to travel, she would likely be in my position by now." She paused and frowned. "May I ask why the NSA seeks her?"

Casey raised a hand. "Don't worry, Director, she's not in any trouble," he said. "However, it's our understanding that she may be in possession of something that might lead us to another agent – one who has been abducted. We'd like to ask her a few questions about that."

"I see," Forrest replied, still not seeming entirely convinced. Nonetheless, she said, "Inara rents a shuttle from a man named Malcolm Reynolds. He's the captain of a transport named _Serenity_, which last checked in…" Forrest paused, turning to a computer terminal and tapping the screen a few times. "According to the Cortex, _Serenity_ docked approximately an hour ago on Persephone."

The room fell quiet, but Casey knew that that was exactly the wrong word to say. As he watched, Sarah's face turned such a shade of red that it was almost purple. "Persephone?" she asked in disbelief. "PERGODDAMNSEPHONE?!"

Sarah shot to her feet, and stormed out of the room, leaving a scorching trail of profanities behind her. "That was rather abrupt," Alexandra Forrest said. "She seemed so pleasant a moment ago."

Casey sighed. "My apologies," he said. "We just arrived here from Persephone, and it took two weeks to get here. I'm afraid Agent Walker has had cabin fever, and as far as I can tell, PMS."

Forrest narrowed her eyes. "I've always found men to be rather poor judges of that," she replied, rising to her feet. "Now, as much as you might hate to make the two week trip back to Persephone, that is your best bet to find _Serenity_, and therefore, Inara. The ship doesn't have a registered home port, but from what Inara has told me, Captain Reynolds does seem to have a certain affinity for the planet."

She turned toward a glass cabinet. "It's inexplicable, really," she said, as she opened the cabinet. "It's my understanding that Captain Reynolds nearly found himself skewered on the business end of a sword on Persephone some time ago, and it was only Inara's intervention that prevented him from winding up dead."

Removing a vial from the cabinet, she returned to Casey and handed it to him. "Tell me, has Agent Walker been traveling with only men?"

Casey shrugged. "Well, four of us," he said.

Forrest sighed and looked toward the ceiling. "Men," she muttered. "Her body is overproducing estrogen to compensate. This drug will cause her body to return to normal estrogen production. She will likely be far calmer than she was just now."

"I'm a fan of that idea," Casey said. "How often do I have to dose her?"

* * *

**Earth-That-Was Antiques  
Eavesdown, Persephone**

Chuck felt like he was ten years old again. He was glued to a Lady Pac-Man machine, his eyes fixed on the screen as the little yellow circle with the pink bow on its head moved across the screen, gobbling up white dots.

Then a hand was placed on his, distracting his attention from the game long enough for Lady Pac-Man to run directly into the red goblin. That's when reality came back to Chuck, reminding him that he was in the twenty-sixth century, and the video game machine in front of him was five hundred and forty years old.

"You look so cute, concentrating on the game like that," Kaylee teased him. "Ever seen one of these before?"

"Holy crap!" Chuck said. "A Sony cassette boom box! I had one of those things when I –"

He suddenly realized just how loud his voice was and dropped it by several decibels. "I had one of those when I was a kid. I must've gone through three copies of the Beastie Boys' _License to Ill_ with it. I thought I was SO cool."

"I bet you did," Kaylee replied, smiling. "Come here – I want you to see something."

Chuck followed her to what looked very much like a big cardboard box full of secure digital memory cards – except they all had combinations of English words and Chinese characters on them. "What the heck?" Chuck asked, pulling out a memory cards.

The English on it was quite clear – U2. "No way!" Chuck said incredulously. "What does the Chinese on this say?"

Kaylee gave him a look. "I thought you learned Chinese, buddy."

Chuck blushed. "Just how to speak it," he replied. "And when I said I cheated, it was that whole Intersect thing."

"Ah," Kaylee replied. "I see. Well, this says, _Achtung, Baby_."

"Oh, that's an AMAZING album," Chuck said, taking the stick back. He dug back into the box, pausing to extract the occasional SDM card. Kaylee joined him, and then stopped a moment later.

"Hey," she said, "these both say the Beatles on them." She handed a card to Chuck. "This one is apparently called _Let It Be_, and –" she handed him a second card "- this one says that it's 'The White Album'."

"Oh, wow," Chuck whispered, almost reverently. "Those are both fantastic albums. I have to get you those."

Kaylee gave him a funny look. "How do you propose to do that?" she asked. "You're broke!"

"No, I'm not!" Chuck replied with a grin. Dumping a pile of ten SDM cards into Kaylee's hands, he ran outside. Within a minute, he was back in the store.

He strode up to the counter, where a man with a nametag that declared he was "Reginald McLellan, Owner," stood.

"How much can I get for this?" Chuck asked, plunking the Herder's Garmin GPS unit on the counter.

Reginald McLellan picked up the GPS unit, his eyes widening. "My Lord," he whispered. "A genuine Global Positioning System unit! And in perfect condition, too!" He looked at Chuck. "Where could you have POSSIBLY come by something like this?"

"It's, uh, a family heirloom," Chuck replied. McLellan gave him a strange look. "Not a big fan of certain members of my family."

"I see," McLellan said. "Well, this is a piece worthy of my museum. I'll give you ten thousand credits for it."

Chuck raised an eyebrow. "Is that a lot?"

His question was answered when he heard a gasp behind him. "_Wode ma!_" Kaylee whispered. Clearly, it was a lot.

Ten minutes later, they walked out of the store. Chuck's wallet was 9,962 credits heavier. Kaylee was holding a bag that contained not just the two Beatles albums and the U2 album, but also selections from Arcade Fire, Bad Religion, the Ataris, Switchfoot, the Killers, and a copy of the movie _Across the Universe_. "Tell me," Chuck said, "why do those look exactly like Secure Digital Memory cards?"

"Well," Kaylee replied, "because they are!"

"Oh, come on!" Chuck shot back. "That's twenty-first century technology!"

"Hey, if it ain't broke, why fix it?" Kaylee asked. "_Serenity_ is nearly fifty years old, but she's a sturdy old girl, y'know?"

"I guess it makes sense," Chuck said. "Do you have something that can read these onboard?"

"Oh, sure!" Kaylee replied. "I have a lot of music – Beethoven, Mozart, Strauss, stuff like that."

Chuck thought for a moment. "Well… if you've got a spare card reader, I think I can probably wire it into the Herder's stereo."

Kaylee smiled. "You'd do that… for me?"

"Well, it is MY car," Chuck said, "so technically, it'd be for me… but yeah, I guess it would be for you, too."

"That'd be nice," Kaylee said softly, as she leaned across to Chuck. Gently grabbing his shirt collar, she pulled him to her, kissing him. The kiss lasted for quite a while, too. It wasn't a super intense, "we're about to die on the docks in San Pedro" sort of kiss… but it was the kind of kiss where one person can tell every emotion going through the other's mind. The kind of kiss where both people involved are totally vulnerable to the other.

The kind that one never wants to end.

Chuck gently placed his hand behind Kaylee's neck and pulled her a little bit closer. Finally, she pulled away, tilting her head back and staring into Chuck's eyes. "Chuck Bartowski," she whispered, "I know I've only known you for three weeks…" She sighed, and closed her eyes. "But I do believe I'm falling in love."

* * *

**Madrassa, Sihnon**

The black government hovercar slid silently to a stop next to _Enterprise_. The back door burst open, startling Bryce – who literally had Frank Mullins on the end of a chain.

"I cannot BELIEVE we have to go back to Persephone!" she growled "We just spent two weeks flying here from –"

"Oh, would you shut up," Casey growled, walking past Sarah. He jabbed a syringe into her thigh and pushed down the plunger, dumping the full dose of Alex Forrest's estrogen reducer directly into her bloodstream.

Sarah looked at the hypodermic needle sticking out of her thigh, and then up at Casey. "What the hell?! What was… oh… I feel… hmmm…"

Casey caught Sarah as she began to collapse. "I'll get Walker loaded; you take care of Mullins," he instructed Bryce.

As Bryce guided Mullins up the stairs into the shuttle at gunpoint, Mullins said, "You do know that you're violating a whole fistful of laws, right?"

Bryce shrugged. "First of all, we aren't in the US right now. Secondly, even if we were, George Bush is still President… so, what are these laws you speak of?"

Mullins just shook his head – and smiled.

Sure, the inch long shard of glass hurt as it dug into the palm of his hand, but he was quite certain it was going to come in handy very soon.


	11. Sarah vs the Mechanic

**Story starts below. Feel free to skip over the Author's Note.**

_**Author's Note:**_ _Okay, so normally I only reply to reviews that really go into detail or ask for something to be explained more fully. I rarely, if EVER, respond to a review publicly._

_However, today I received a review on Chapter 10 of _Chuck vs. the Future _Redux which I think demands a public response. The portion of the review that I will be responding to is as follows (edited for spelling and grammatical errors):_

"…your anti-Bush crap is getting tiresome. He wasn't my fav[orite] pres[ident] either. Fanfics are no place for this crap; it'll drive away readers quicker than a Mary-Sue."

_Well. That's one person's opinion. And that person is certainly entitled to that opinion. That person is even entitled to leave me a review stating that opinion._

_However, I am also entitled to respond to this review by saying that I think it's, well, completely wrong. For starters, it's no secret among my readers that I'm a political junkie (and, yes, unabashedly liberal and a proud supporter of President Obama). One of what I consider to be my most "epic" stories, _Chuck vs. the Seventh Day_, is absolutely chock-full of political intrigue. Quite frankly, if you can't handle politics in fanfic, then my fanfic is not the material for you._

_Now that having been said, allow me to respond to the accusation that I have filled this story with so-called "anti-Bush crap". There are two spots in the story that I have identified as __**possibly**__ being thought of as "anti-Bush"._

_1) (from Chapter 7) _"Legend has it that [Keith Olbermann] was some sort of tyrannical dictator on Earth-that-was. He started a war in some place called E Rock, or somethin' like that, and the hero of Texas, this guy named Dubya, fixed it all up."

_Okay, so yes, this does take something of a shot at George Bush. However, this particular joke is just as much at Keith Olbermann's expense as it is at George Bush's expense. It's a joke, not an "anti-Bush" comment._

_2) (from Chapter 10)_ "…even if we were, George Bush is still President… so, what are these laws you speak of?"

_One could consider this to be anti-Bush, or one could consider this to simply be a matter of fact. It is on the public record that during George W. Bush's presidency, those individuals considered to be "enemy combatants" were not treated by the United States government in accordance with the Geneva Convention, per memos from the Department of Justice. Bryce Larkin's statement here is simply a statement of fact as it would have been interpreted in late December of 2008, since Frank Mullins, as a member of a domestic terror group, would surely have been considered an "enemy combatant"._

_Now, as far as my other stories go, I do not believe that any of them are filled with so-called "anti-Bush" crap. In fact, George W. Bush is a minor, though important character in _The Seduction of Sarah Walker. _Other political figures appear in my fanfic as well. Controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, appears in _The Seduction of Sarah Walker;_ Senator John McCain appears as President in both _Chuck vs. the Seventh Day _and_ Chuck In a Moment; _Barack Obama is mentioned briefly as President at the end of _Chuck vs. His Destiny_; the entire Congressional Subcommittee on Intelligence (for the 110__th__ Congress) appears in _Chuck vs. His Destiny;_ and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (for the 112__th__ Congress) appears in, again, _Chuck vs. the Seventh Day.

_At the end of the day, though, those two so-called "anti-Bush" cracks within _Chuck vs. the Future _Redux constitute a total of 57 words out of 37,627 that were written throughout the first ten chapters. To put that into perspective, even if those were intended to be "anti-Bush", it would still be less than one-fifth of one percent of the entire story._

_I guess what I'm saying is this: it's only "anti-Bush" if you interpret it that way. If there's one thing I ask of my readers, it's that they leave their prejudices at the door. Don't drag them into my fanfic, and don't drag my fanfic into your preconceived notions. Just enjoy it for what it is – a work of fiction, written by a devoted fan._

_Jimmy "The Notorious JMG" Gawne  
Peoria, Arizona, March 13__th__, 2009_

* * *

_**Chuck vs. the Future **_**Redux, Chapter 11 – "Sarah vs. the Mechanic"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Chuck Bartowski: Zachary Levi  
Kaylee Frye: Jewel Staite  
Malcolm Reynolds: Nathan Fillion  
unseen Catholic Priest: Alan Tudyk  
Jayne Cobb: Adam Baldwin  
Zoe Washburne: Gina Torres  
Inara Serra: Morena Baccarin  
River Tam: Summer Glau  
Simon Tam: Sean Maher  
Captain Mike Tweedum: Jason Bateman  
Major Rick Lorenz: Michael Biehn  
Sarah Walker: Yvonne Strahovski  
John Casey: Adam Baldwin  
Bryce Larkin: Matthew Bomer

* * *

**7:30 AM, Alliance Mean Time  
January 17****th****, 2519  
Holiday Inn by BLUE SUN, Eavesdown, Persephone**

Room 702 of the Eavesdown Holiday Inn was occupied by a solitary man. His head was covered in brown curls, an empty wine bottle sat on the table, and he was dead to the world.

It was a strange story of how he had come to be in this place, too.

The night before, he had been sitting in a car – his car – kissing a beautiful girl, when she told him that she thought she was falling in love. At that point, he freaked out slightly.

Ten minutes later, Kaylee Frye had been left standing, stunned, outside of _Serenity_, as Chuck Bartowski sped away in his Buy More-issued Toyota Yaris. Her eyes began filling with tears as the Toyota disappeared from sight, but Chuck didn't look back.

Half an hour later, he found a hotel that didn't reek of crime and prostitution, and using the credits remaining from his sale of the Herder's GPS unit to the museum curator, Chuck was able to secure a room for the night.

Little did Chuck know that a tearful Hurricane Kaylee had torn her way through _Serenity_ the night before, leaving a disturbed crew – and a VERY angry captain – in her path. And so it was that at 7:30 AM on an overcast Tuesday morning, Chuck's iPhone began ringing.

When Chuck answered, he was still half-asleep and most definitely hungover. In fact, at first, it didn't even register with him that he was in the year 2519 and on a planet other than Earth – as far as he knew, he was in Los Angeles, and it was January of 2009.

That illusion lasted right up until the word "Hello" had exited his mouth

"_Good morning, Chuck,_" the voice of Malcolm Reynolds replied, and boy did Mal sound pissed.

"Oh dear God," Chuck said, sitting bolt upright and nearly dropping the phone. "Uh, good morning, uh, Captain Reynolds."

Chuck swore he heard a wordless growl come through the phone. "_Listen very closely, bucko,_" Mal said. "_You have approximately sixty seconds to explain something to me before I take off and leave your ass on this godforsaken rock._"

Chuck's eyes went wide and his stomach tightened. "Uh, yes sir, what's that?"

"_You can tell me exactly why my mechanic stormed through my ship last night in tears, locked herself in her cabin, and hasn't talked to anybody for over ten hours._" Mal paused, the silence ominous. "_If I don't like your answer, I'll be sending Jayne to find you, and… well…_"

"No, no, there's no need for that!" Chuck hastily exclaimed. "Uh, I can definitely tell you what happened, Mal. We were at this Earth antiquities shop, and Kaylee told me she thought she was falling in love with me. I sort of freaked out, and I swear, I didn't mean to hurt her, really I didn't, because I really do like her a whole lot." He paused for breath and swallowed. "It's just that, when she said she was falling in love with me – well, I just wasn't ready for that."

The other end of the line was silent for so long that Chuck was afraid Mal had disconnected. Finally, Mal said, "_Well… I guess I can understand that. But you still need to apologize, make nice with her somehow._"

Chuck breathed a sigh of relief. "You know, Mal, you're probably right," he replied. "I'm open to suggestions."

"_Welllll,_" Mal drawled, "_Kaylee's partial to sunflowers and strawberries. You might wanna rustle some up for her._"

"Will do," Chuck started, and then he interrupted himself. "Wait a second. Where the hell am I supposed to find those?"

Mal started laughing. "_Not my problem, Chuck_," he said. "_I would say that… maybe you should go to confession._"

With that, Mal disconnected. "What the hell?" Chuck asked, looking at his phone.

The iPhone gave him no wisdom – and despite River's modification to it to allow him to talk on it, its 3G connectivity still didn't allow him to connect to the Cortex. So using that to follow Mal's suggestion wasn't an option.

Ten minutes later, Chuck departed the Holiday Inn, driving slowly through Eavesdown. About a mile from the hotel, he noticed a church. Mal's words rang through his head, and he brought the Herder to a screeching halt at the curb.

_St. John Vianney Church of God in Christ_, the sign by the door read as Chuck walked in. It felt a little weird to be walking into a church – he hadn't done so since he was twelve years old.

Chuck stood outside the confession booth for a moment, looking at it like a trap. This was just too weird – but then again, he WAS five hundred years in the future, so what was a confessional booth in a church?

Taking a breath, Chuck opened the door and stepped into the booth. Sitting down, he crossed himself, and then slid open the window between himself and the priest. "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," he said, retrieving the words from the rusty recesses of his mind. "It has been… uh… well, the time since my last confession is sort of a matter of temporal mechanics."

If what he said fazed the priest, it didn't show when he replied. "My son, in your personal experience, how long has it been since your last confession?"

Chuck sighed and thought about it for a moment. _Good Friday 1993… April 9__th__, 1993… add on a day because I moved backward a day on the calendar when I came forward…_

"Fifteen years, nine months, and nine days," Chuck muttered, feeling defeated.

"That is some time, my son," the priest said, a note of shock registering in his voice this time. "What brings you before the Lord?"

Chuck laughed quietly. "I'm not going to go into the full litany of everything I've done in the last decade and a half," he replied. "However, I recently hurt somebody I care for a great deal, and it was recommended that I go to confession in order to fix the matter."

"I… see," the priest replied. "And what about confession is supposed to fix this for you?"

"I have no idea, Father," Chuck said. "I was told that I should collect sunflowers and strawberries for her by the captain of the ship I'm on."

"What is your captain's name, my son?"

"Malcolm Reynolds, Father," Chuck answered. "Are you familiar with him?"

The priest was silent for a moment. Finally, he said, "You knew Derrial Book, then?"

"Know _of_ him," Chuck corrected the priest. "He died nearly a year before I came onboard."

"Very well," the priest said. "When you leave this place, go east fifteen kilometers, exiting the city. You will come to a monastery on the left, where both sunflowers and strawberries are grown. Tell them that you are friends of friends of Derrial Book, and they will be happy to help you."

Chuck smiled and started to stand. "Awesome," he said. "Thank you, Father."

"Oh, don't be goin' anywhere TOO fast," the priest said. "Nearly sixteen years without confession? Before you walk out the doors of this church, you're gonna do fifty Hail Marys and twenty Our Fathers, _capisce_?"

Chuck groaned. "Dammit," he muttered.

"Make that fifty-five Hail Marys. Oh, and pray the rosary a few times as well. It sounds like you need it."

It was nearly forty minutes before Chuck left the church. Getting in the Herder, he turned it around and made a beeline for the monastery east of town.

When he left the monastery, he had a dozen sunflowers and a box of the reddest, ripest strawberries he had ever seen. He had also been subjected to an additional Hail Mary for EVERY SINGLE SUNFLOWER HE TOOK.

"I'm never going to church again," he muttered under his breath as he sped back toward _Serenity_'s berth at the docks.

When Chuck reached the old Firefly, the ramp into the cargo bay was open, and he drove straight in. Jayne was working out on the weight bench in the corner of the bay, and as Chuck disembarked from the Herder, Jayne sat up and actually GROWLED at Chuck.

Chuck shuddered as he thought of what Casey's doppelganger might be able to do to him, and departed the cargo bay quickly. He had to pass through the common room in the center of the ship to reach Kaylee's quarters, and much to his dismay, Zoe, Simon, River, and Inara had all chosen to be in the common room just at that moment.

Chuck decided it was in his best interests to simply ignore the four, and swept through the common room unmolested. However, as he was passing into the corridor heading toward the crew quarters, River spoke up.

"Chuck?" she said.

Chuck stopped and turned around. "I can kill you with my mind."

Chuck's eyes widened and he shuddered. Turning around, he walked away from the common room as rapidly as he could. When he reached Kaylee's quarters, he knocked on the door. No answer. Cracking the door open, he poked his head inside – no Kaylee.

With a sigh, Chuck pulled the door back shut and headed for the control room. "Well, well, hello Chuck!" Mal Reynolds said as Chuck entered.

Chuck gave Mal a dirty look. "You didn't explain to the crew what happened, did you?"

Mal grinned. "Hell no!" he replied. "Where's the fun in that?"

Chuck sighed and looked at the deck. "Where's Kaylee?"

"Workin' on the engines," Mal replied. "And I'd be careful if I were you. She's liable to go monkeyshit on you."

"Super," Chuck grumbled, heading back toward engineering. He passed through the common room as quickly as he could, ignoring the muttered, under-the-breath imprecations hurled at him by the four _Serenity_ crew sitting there.

Just before Chuck reached the engineering room, he ran into Jayne Cobb. Jayne was holding a rather nasty looking machine gun. "Have you met Vera, Chuck?" he asked, a menacing glint in his eyes.

Chuck just shuddered and stepped into the machine room. He didn't see anybody in there.

"Kaylee?" he asked.

There was a metallic clang, and something flew out from behind the drivetrain. Chuck saw light reflect off of something – and realized that that something was a very large wrench, headed on a ballistic trajectory for his head.

"Whoa!" Chuck shouted, ducking out of the wrench's path. "Come on, now!"

"YOU DROVE AWAY WITHOUT EVEN SAYING GOOD-BYE!"

The very angry voice of a very angry Kaywinnit Lee Frye bounced off the walls of the engine room and echoed out into the ship. In the common room, four sets of ears perked up, and they began to gravitate toward the engine room, Jayne Cobb joining them on the way.

Chuck heard a metallic thud. Something else would be coming very shortly.

"NOT ONLY DID YOU DRIVE AWAY, BUT YOU DID IT IN THE CAR THAT _**I**_ SPENT TWO **WEEKS** FIXING FOR YOU!"

The ball-peen hammer came whipping end-over-end out from under the drive. Chuck was expecting this ballistic object, and side-stepped it easily. Nonetheless, the noise it made as it crashed into the wall still rattled him.

"Kaylee," he pleaded, "look, I know, I'm an ass. I shouldn't have done what I did."

"Heh," he heard from behind him. Turning around, Chuck saw the entire crew of _Serenity_ gathered in the doorway behind him.

"No shit you're an ass, Sherlock," Jayne snarked.

Chuck sighed and shook his head. Setting the sunflowers and strawberries on Kaylee's hammock, he crossed to the door control panel and pressed the large red button that closed the door. "Hasta la vista," he muttered darkly as the door slid shut.

As he turned around, a hand smacked into the left side of his face, stunning him. "I'm gonna go ahead and agree with Jayne on this one," Kaylee said angrily, hands on her hips.

"I'm sorry," Chuck said quietly, holding a hand to his face.

"Sorry barely begins to cut it!" Kaylee exclaimed. "I tell you I'm fallin' in love, and you kick me to the curb? What the hell?!"

"You're right," Chuck admitted, his gaze falling to the deck. "It was a horrible thing for me to do. I just – I don't do well with this kind of thing. I freak out when somebody I like tells me they like me back. In your case, I freaked out a LOT because I like you a LOT, and I was afraid that I was going to screw it up somehow. Which…"

He looked up and shrugged. "I seem to have done anyway."

Kaylee's glare softened a little. "So you didn't kick me out and drive me away because you don't like me?"

Chuck shook his head.

"You kicked me out and drove away because you really DO like me and you were scared of screwing it up?"

"Pretty much."

A small smile appeared on Kaylee's mouth. "Chuck Bartowski, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

Chuck laughed quietly. "I know, and I'm sorry," he said. Gesturing toward the sunflowers on Kaylee's hammock, he added, "Those are for you."

"Well, I didn't figure they were for Jayne," Kaylee said. "They are pretty, though." Picking up the sunflowers, she turned toward Chuck. "Now, how'd you know I like these?"

"Uh, a little birdie told me."

"Sure," Kaylee replied sarcastically. "The rare tight-pants'd Reynolds bird?"

Chuck laughed again. "That might be the one," he replied. "But… I think you should open that box, too."

Kaylee narrowed her eyes, and then tugged the lid off the box. As its contents were revealed, her eyes widened. "Oh… my… God…"

"Heard you liked those too," Chuck said.

Kaylee turned toward him, a smile on her face. "You apologize VERY well, Chuck Bartowski."

Chuck looked at the ceiling. "Thanks, I think."

Kaylee closed the distance between the two, and flung her arms around Chuck hugging him so tightly that for a moment, he thought she was trying to suffocate him. Then, that moment passed, and he wrapped his arms around her. "I am so sorry," he whispered. "I never meant to hurt you."

"I know," she whispered back. "And I love you all the more for it."

She pulled back, kissed Chuck lightly, and then looked him right in the eyes. "But if you ever do something like that again, I'm going to find my biggest pair of pliers, and crush your balls."

* * *

**12:30 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
January 21****st****, 2519  
United States Shuttle **_**Enterprise**_

Mike Tweedum was the only one really paying attention to the controls of the shuttle. Rick Lorenz was taking a nap, Sarah Walker was working on something on her laptop, and John Casey and Bryce Larkin were engaged in what appeared to be a high-stakes game of Gin Rummy.

However, all four of the conscious crew looked up when a shudder ran through the shuttle. A moment later, an incessant beeping erupted from _Enterprise_'s control console.

"Uh-oh," Mike Tweedum muttered. Pushing the button to activate the P/A, he said, "Uh, we've got a problem. I need all crew on deck."

A moment later, the three intelligence agents appeared on deck. "What's going on?" Sarah asked.

"That's an excellent question," Rick Lorenz grumbled, pushing past her toward his station. His hair was mussed, and it was clear that he had just woken up. "Tweedum, report."

"Uh, sir, the impulse drive has suffered a serious failure," Tweedum said quietly. "There's an inhabited moon approximately one thousand miles away – the computer says it's called Higgins Moon. It's supposedly an industrial moon – we should be able to repair the drive there."

"Christ," Lorenz muttered. "Alright, change heading toward this moon and prepare to fire the retros."

"Yes, sir," Tweedum replied. Thrusters brought _Enterprise_ around toward the moon. "Preparing to fire retro rockets," Tweedum declared.

"Fire."

The twin rockets on _Enterprise_'s tail, normally used to change the shuttle's attitude to prepare to enter Earth's atmosphere, instead changed the shuttle's attitude to prepare to enter Higgins Moon's atmosphere. They burned for about thirty seconds, and then cut out. "That's all we got," Tweedum said worriedly. "We don't have any more fuel for those."

"Then we need a fill-up when we get our repairs done," Lorenz replied. "The rest of you, buckle up and hang on – we've got a bad descent angle, and this is gonna be bumpy."

Fifteen minutes and a bone-rattling descent later, _Enterprise_ glided toward the runway at the Canton Spaceport. Anybody on the ground would've seen that her belly was blackened and scarred, far more so than it had been after the landing on Persephone or Sihnon.

"I hope we can find adequate materials to properly patch her up," Tweedum said quietly as _Enterprise_ rolled to a stop. "I knew people on _Columbia_. I don't want to end up like that."

When the shuttle's hatch opened, a particularly foul stench filled the cabin. "Oh, ew," Sarah said, wrinkling her nose.

"Yeah, that's, uh, unpleasant," Casey added.

"Smells like fun!" Bryce replied.

Sarah gave Bryce a weird look, and then just shook her head. Ever since Casey had injected her with the hormone balancing drug on Sihnon, Sarah had been much closer to normal. Bryce, on the other hand, had developed a rather severe case of cabin fever and seemed to have turned permanently silly.

"He's gonna crash sooner or later, and I can't wait to see it," Casey muttered to Sarah as he departed the shuttle.

They were walking into town when Bryce froze, staring at something on the side of the road. "What in the HELL is that?" he asked, an astonished note in his voice.

"What the hell is what?" Sarah asked, turning around to face him. Bryce didn't say anything, just pointed up and behind Sarah.

Sarah turned around, following Bryce's finger – "Oh dear God," she gasped, looking up at what appeared to be a statue of John Casey. "Casey…"

"Well, it's not me," Casey said with a shrug, although he did look disturbed. "I don't have a goatee or a mustache. It's also not pretty enough."

Sarah looked at Casey in disbelief. "Rather high opinion of yourself, bucko."

"Hey, never let it be said that I think I'm ugly," Casey replied with a grin. "That dude, though? Ugly with a capital Ug."

As the trio progressed further into town, a growing number of people stared and pointed at Casey, whispering to one another. A couple of them were actually so bold as to walk up to Casey and ask him if he was Jayne Cobb.

"Sorry, no," Casey replied. "I think you have me confused with somebody else." He turned to Sarah. "Who the hell is Jayne?"

"I'm gonna guess he's the statue," Sarah replied.

"Oh, fantastic." Casey grunted and looked straight ahead. Then he turned to Bryce. "Larkin, gimme your ballcap and your sunglasses."

Bryce looked back at Casey. "What? No!"

"LARKIN!"

"Bryce, just do it," Sarah said quietly.

"Fine," Bryce grumbled.

The hat and sunglasses kept people from approaching Casey, but it didn't stop the whispers.

Casey clenched his fists. "I may have to hurt somebody."

* * *

_**Serenity**_

It turned out that when Kaylee was hiding under the engines and feeling sorry for herself, she had discovered a problem with one of the drive converters. As such, she had spent the next five days slaving away, attempting to fix it. By the time nightfall came, she was too exhausted to do anything more than kiss Chuck good night, curl up next to him, and fall asleep.

Chuck was okay with that. He was perfectly happy to fall asleep each night holding Kaylee.

Well, happy until the night of the 21st.

For some reason, Chuck's sleep was troubled that night. Nightmares ran through his head at breakneck pace. They had various themes – Ellie and Awesome fighting, Morgan turning his back on him, the Buy More being invaded by Fulcrum again – but they all had a common ending.

Sarah putting a bullet into the head of a Fulcrum operative in a Christmas tree lot.

When Chuck's eyes finally flew open, he was drenched in a cold sweat. He realized that the bed was cold – Kaylee wasn't there.

Chuck reached out and turned on the lights. The brightness hurt his eyes, but also made it evident that Kaylee was nowhere to be seen.

That's when the door opened. Chuck looked toward the door –

"Oh my God," he gasped as Sarah Walker came through the door. "Sarah?! What – how –"

Sarah looked at Chuck, a smile on her face. "Chuck, I told you in my letter – we were going to come for you. Did you think we wouldn't?"

"Well, no, of course not!" Chuck protested. "I knew you would – but when did you come onboard _Serenity_?"

Sarah shrugged. "Does it matter?" she asked softly. "Aren't you happy to see me?"

"Of course I am!" Chuck exclaimed. "I just don't und-"

His words died in his throat as Sarah's lips pressed against his. His eyes closed – it felt so right – but it felt so wrong, so very WRONG –

_Shut up_, Chuck instructed his conscience as he wrapped his arms around Sarah's back, drawing her closer.

That's when the door opened again. Chuck heard a gasp. Pulling away from Sarah, he saw Kaylee in the doorway, her face draining of color, her eyes filling with tears.

"Oh, shit," he whispered. "Kaylee…"

"You total, utter bastard," she sobbed. "I can't believe I thought I loved you."

Kaylee turned away, slamming the door behind her. Chuck let go of Sarah and rushed to the door. Pulling the door open, he looked out into the corridor – Kaylee was nowhere to be seen.

"Chuck?" he heard Sarah say behind him. "What's going on? I thought you were happy to see me!"

Chuck ignored Sarah, calling Kaylee's name. He called her name again. And again. No response.

"KAYLEE!"

And that's when Chuck snapped awake. He sat bolt upright in his bed, gasping for breath.

His quarters were dark, and Kaylee had woken up when he screamed her name. "Chuck?" she asked, her voice filled with concern. "Are you alright?"

Chuck didn't say anything. He pulled Kaylee to him and wrapped his arms around her. She responded in kind, wrapping her arms around his back. "I can hear your heart beating," she said after a moment. "It's goin' about a hundred miles an hour. Are you okay?"

Chuck pulled back a little and looked Kaylee in the eye. "Kaylee, please don't ever let me do anything to hurt you again. Okay?"

Kaylee looked up at Chuck and smiled. "Chuck, you're not going to," she said softly. Boosting herself up a little, she kissed him gently. "Now go back to sleep. It's the middle of the night."

Chuck's dreams were pleasant for the rest of the night.

* * *

**7:45 AM, Alliance Mean Time  
January 22****nd****, 2519  
Canton, Higgins Moon**

John Casey had spent most of the night fighting off people who thought that he was Jayne Cobb. However, just before midnight, he discovered that Jayne Cobb apparently traveled on the same ship as Inara Serra, and he immediately became far more interested in the man he looked like. It seemed that _Serenity_ had just recently departed the planet Persephone, bound for the ocean moon Bellerephon.

Upon return to the shuttle, Sarah told Major Lorenz that they needed to get to Bellerephon as quickly as possible. "I'm not sure how much stress the drive can take," he replied worriedly.

"Don't care," Sarah replied shortly. "Persephone's between here and there. If things go wrong, we can always land there and have them fix us up."

"Oookay," Lorenz sighed.

Sarah's sleep that night was troubled. She kept dreaming that she saw Chuck, but when she tried to call his name, she either couldn't make any noise, or he didn't hear her, or he was too far away. In the worst dream of all, Sarah called his name. Chuck turned and looked directly at her – right before putting his arm around a red-headed girl and walking away.

The next morning, Sarah was rather quiet. After the shuttle had lifted off, she went down to the lower deck, where the treadmill was located. Bryce found her there, two hours later, still running.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing's wrong," Sarah replied shortly.

"Yeah, crap," Bryce replied. "I know you too well for that. You only run this much when something's going on. Your knee's got to be killing you."

In truth, Sarah's left knee felt like it was on fire. However, when she felt as stressed as she was at that moment, she ran until she didn't feel stressed anymore.

In short, Bryce was right. Sarah sighed in frustration. "Have you ever been basically crazy about somebody, and known that it wasn't a good idea, but were on the verge of letting your heart overrule your brain?"

Bryce grinned. "You've got it that bad for Chuck, huh?"

Sarah narrowed her eyes. "Just answer the question, Bryce."

"Yeah," Bryce replied. "I've been there, and I did let my heart take over. With you."

Sarah's eyes widened, and she slammed her hand down on the treadmill's stop button. "I wasn't a good idea?!"

"Oh, hell no," Bryce said. "Don't get me wrong, you as a person were great, but us as a couple was quite possibly the worst idea ever. It was an accident waiting to happen, and if I hadn't had to fake my death, God only knows what might have happened."

"What the hell?!" Sarah practically yelled. "What could possibly have made you think that?"

"Don't know," Bryce replied. "It was just a feeling. But… why exactly are we talking about me? This is about Chuck, not me. Which means that you didn't listen to a WORD I said back in October, did you?"

Sarah glared at Bryce. "Since I have successfully fended off Chuck's advances since then, I would say you're wrong."

Bryce snorted. "First of all, Chuck's advances have been limited, because he actually DID listen to the advice I gave him. Secondly, that charm bracelet on your wrist tells me that your personal defenses are, shall we say, rather weak."

"You know what?!" Sarah shot back, feeling even more frustrated. "This is not helping. I had a horrible night, and now this."

Sarah proceeded to tell Bryce about her dreams, including the last one. "Red-headed girl?" Bryce asked, trying and failing to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "Last time I checked, his name was Chuck Bartowski, not Charlie Brown." Bryce shook his head. "And anyway, even if she was real, what would you do? Shoot her?"

"The thought has crossed my mind," Sarah replied darkly, the image of a traitorous and very dead LAPD hostage negotiator entering her mind's eye unbidden.

"Well, there you go," Bryce said. "This is part of why I thought we were a bad idea. You try to control everything – and you can't."

Sarah opened her mouth to protest, but Bryce cut her off. "You're a good person, Sarah," he said. "So is Chuck. I know how you feel about him. I know you want, somehow, for it to work. But you can't control him. You have to let him live his life."

With that, Bryce floated through the door, and Sarah was alone once more.


	12. An Inconvenient Truth

_**Chuck vs. the Future**_** Redux, Chapter 12 – "An Inconvenient Truth"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):  
**Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
Major Rick Lorenz – Michael Biehn  
Captain Mike Tweedum – Jason Bateman  
John Casey – Adam Baldwin  
Bryce Larkin – Matthew Bomer  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
Kaylee Frye – Jewel Staite  
Mal Reynolds – Nathan Fillion  
River Tam – Summer Glau  
Zoe Washburne – Gina Torres  
Jayne Cobb – Adam Baldwin  
Simon Tam – Sean Maher  
Inara Serra – Morena Baccarin

* * *

**12:00 Noon, Alliance Mean Time  
January 30****th****, 2519  
United States shuttle **_**Enterprise**_

A few months before Christmas, Chuck had learned that Sarah had never seen any of the _Star Trek_ movies. He had then convinced her that she needed to see all of them – starting with _Star Trek: The Motion Picture_, and going all the way through to _Star Trek: Nemesis_.

It had taken them a weekend to watch all ten movies, but Sarah had enjoyed it. There was a moment near the end of _Star Trek VI_ that she remembered quite clearly.

USS _Excelsior_ had been flying to the planet Khitomer at maximum warp to assist USS _Enterprise_ in stopping a right-wing fringe plot to bring down the Klingon government and keep the Cold War between the Klingons and the Federation going. Captain Hikaru Sulu had ordered his helmsman to do whatever took to make _Excelsior _go faster.

"She'll fly apart," he was told.

"Fly her apart then!" Captain Sulu had snapped.

That was just about how Sarah felt at the moment. Eight days earlier, she had told Major Lorenz to push _Enterprise_ to her limits. It was ordinarily a thirteen day trip from Higgins' Moon to Bellerephon, and a five day trip from Persephone to Bellerephon. Sarah had learned that _Serenity_'s job on Bellerephon was scheduled to keep them there for four days.

After sitting down with Captain Tweedum and doing some calculations, Sarah and Tweedum had determined that at maximum speed, _Enterprise_ could theoretically make it from Higgins' Moon to Bellerephon in nine days. That meant that they would either arrive there just before _Serenity_ left, or even if they were too late, they would be hot on the old Firefly's tail.

And so it was that _Enterprise_ was blazing across space at a speed that normally only Alliance cruisers could attain. The engine that MKV _Columbia_'s crew had installed was, in reality, far too powerful for the old space shuttle, and with it running at full power, _Enterprise_ was taking something of a beating.

The rattle coming from the back end of _Enterprise_ had become worrisome four hours beforehand. Now, it was downright ominous. Sarah had entered something of a state of denial. She refused to believe that _Enterprise_ was going to have to stop for repairs – not when they were this close.

But even as the scene from _Star Trek VI_ ran through Sarah's mind, the ominous rattling turned into a groan, then a whine, then a shriek – and then the space shuttle jerked around. The Alliance-installed engine cut out completely, leaving the shuttle spinning in a circle across space.

The four men had been strapped into their seats, but Sarah wasn't so lucky. The sudden change in the shuttle's course caused Sarah to whip across the cabin and slam into the bulkhead. Her head hit the wall with a sickening crack, and she fell unconscious, floating drunkenly across the zero-gravity cabin.

"Oh God!" Casey shouted. Fighting off the massive G-forces suddenly exerted on the shuttle's occupants, he forced an arm upward and snagged Sarah. With a great effort, he dragged her down toward his lap. Wrapping his arms around Sarah, he yelled, "GET IT UNDER CONTROL!"

"Trying…" Major Lorenz grunted. His attention turned to Tweedum. "Pulse drive?"

"Coming… online," Tweedum replied, powering up the old space drive that had been installed on Earth. "Pulse drive… active…"

Lorenz pulled down on the throttle, bringing the pulse drive to full. The shuttle's spin abated somewhat, but the pulse drive was designed for speed, not acceleration. "Shit…" Tweedum gasped. "Retros?"

"Might set… tail on fire…"

"We'll die otherwise…"

Lorenz nodded, and reached out a hand. "Three… two… one…"

With a mighty blast, the retro rockets fired. The spin stopped practically instantly as _Enterprise_ shot off in one direction. Newton's First Law of Motion did its best to send Sarah Walker crashing into the bulkhead again, but Casey kept a grip on her until _Enterprise_'s sideways momentum was fully neutralized.

After a few seconds, the space shuttle's retro rockets fell silent, and Lorenz brought the pulse drive back to idle. Silence reigned in the shuttle's cabin for a few seconds –

And then an alarm began whooping. "Oh, Jesus," Mike Tweedum muttered. "We've got a leak!"

"Spacesuits!" Lorenz ordered. Immediately, Bryce and Casey unstrapped themselves and headed downstairs – only for Casey to freeze halfway through the hatch.

"Wait a second," he said. "We've only got enough for the original crew."

Lorenz closed his eyes. "Goddammit," he muttered. "This is why I said I DIDN'T want an extra person coming along."

He turned to Tweedum. "Mike, how close are we to Persephone?"

Tweedum shook his head. "If we can get the pulse drive to give us maximum velocity, two hours."

Lorenz looked at Tweedum, then at Casey and Bryce. "Alright," he said. "Here's what's gonna happen. Casey, get Walker in her spacesuit, and then get in yours. Larkin, I want you to grab one of the emergency oxygen bottles and get in the airlock. It'll remain pressurized, and between the residual oxygen in there and the emergency bottle, you should be fine until we can land on Persephone.

"Yes, sir," Bryce responded automatically, moving back through the hatch and shooting downstairs.

Lorenz looked out _Enterprise_'s windshield, watching Persephone as Tweedum brought the shuttle around on a bearing toward the planet. "May God have mercy on our souls."

* * *

**1:30 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
**_**Serenity**_**, en route from Persephone to Bellerephon**

For several days, Kaylee had been trying to get Chuck to tell the rest of the crew his story. Initially, he had resisted – he claimed that he didn't really like to dredge up the past. However, she had finally convinced him one night by refusing to let him even touch her until he acquiesced.

"It's blackmail," he had grumbled at the time.

"Oh, but you enjoy it," Kaylee had replied sweetly, planting a kiss on his forehead.

And so, the crew had gathered in _Serenity_'s common room, a decent lunch having been prepared by River and Zoe, using supplies that had been picked up on Persephone. When everybody was done, Mal looked at Chuck. "You're on, buddy."

"Alright," Chuck said. "So, here's the deal. I'm gonna give you basically the low down on the life of Chuck Bartowski. If you have any questions, go ahead and ask."

"Yeah, I got a question," Jayne said.

Chuck narrowed his eyes. "I haven't started yet."

Jayne shrugged. "Still got a question."

"Fine," Chuck sighed. "What?"

"You and Kaylee done the deed yet?"

"OOOKAY," Mal said, standing up. "Jayne, I'm revokin' your speaking privileges for the next hour or so."

"Aw, Cap-"

"Shut up, Jayne."

Chuck shook his head. "Well, if that's done with, let me take you back to… oh, let's say 1999," he began. "I started at Stanford University that fall. I ran into a guy named Bryce Larkin. He was my age, and in the same field. He introduced me to a girl named Jill Roberts.

Chuck smiled slightly. "I fell head over heels for her. She was really everything I had ever dreamed of – she was beautiful, but she was a great big nerd just like me. I fell in lo…"

Chuck's voice trailed off as Kaylee cleared her throat. He turned to see her glaring at him. "Uh, anyway, you get the point," he said quickly. "So, 2003, my last semester in school, Bryce got me kicked out, then Jill dumped me." He turned to look at Kaylee again. The glare softened a little bit.

"So, five years passed. I lived with my sister, working at an electronics store –"

"Wait a second," Simon interrupted. "Aren't you supposed to be some sort of genius?"

"I was an underachiever," Chuck replied wryly. "The whole getting betrayed by Bryce and dumped by Jill thing really threw me into a tailspin.

"Thing is, my twenty-seventh birthday, my sister threw me a birthday party, and invited a whole bunch of single women, to try and fix me up. Now, even though it had been more than five years, I was still kind of obsessed, and I just couldn't move on from Jill."

The corner of Chuck's mouth ticked upward. "So, I found myself in my bedroom with my friend, Morgan, as we tried to escape. My sister found us, and made me stick around. Later that night, though, I got what Morgan thought was a birthday e-mail from Bryce." Chuck paused. "It was not.

"It turned out that it was the database of a government computer project known as the Intersect," Chuck continued. "The entire thing imprinted itself on my brain, and since I have a remarkable ability for subliminal image retention and pattern recognition, my brain can actually put together intelligence data using what's in my brain."

River cocked her head. "The Intersect," she said quietly. "Did it involve a large number of pictures being flashed in front of you sequentially, and at a high speed?"

"Yeah," Chuck said, his curiosity piqued. "How'd you know that?"

"They tested it on me," she said. "But it didn't work. I couldn't talk for almost four months after that."

Simon looked at River incredulously. "Why didn't you ever mention this?"

River shrugged. "I didn't think it was important."

Chuck looked at River worriedly. "It's important," he replied. "You should've told your brother about it."

He looked back at the rest of the crew. "Anyway, so the government sent in a pair of handlers – Sarah Walker, from the Central Intelligence Agency, and John Casey, from the National Security Agency."

At the words "National Security Agency", there was a collective intake of breath. "He's not a bad person," Chuck insisted. "Look, I don't know what the NSA has become in your time, but back in my time, they were only interested in the protection of the country, morally misguided though they may have been. And John Casey is definitely one of the good guys."

River narrowed her eyes. "Two by two, hands of blue," she muttered.

"Yeah, exactly," Chuck replied, his voice getting louder. "I don't know where that came from, but that's not the way we roll in the twenty-first century!"

"Alright, alright," Mal said, raising his hands. "No need to get heated, Chuck. We all just want to hear your story."

Chuck sighed. "Anyway. So Casey's cover is that he's my neighbor, and Sarah's cover is that she's my girlfriend." He looked at the deck. "The problem is, I grew to really care for Sarah, and I know she feels the same way about me – but she won't do anything about it." His voice grew bitter. "Apparently, the job is more important."

The room had grown very quiet. "To make matters worse," Chuck continued, "I don't even know if I can trust her anymore." He sighed. "Right before I came here, on Christmas Eve, there was a hostage situation at the store I work for. The guy who took over the store works for this terrorist group called Fulcrum, and so did the police negotiator who came in."

Chuck bit his lip, the memories of Christmas Eve running through his brain like a flood. "The police officer threatened to kill my sister if I didn't turn myself into him. So, I went with him, but Sarah and Casey managed to rescue me. Sarah told me to go back to the store and wait for her."

He looked up. "I didn't. I stayed there, and I saw her – she shot the cop, she basically executed him." He smiled, but there was only sadness in Chuck's eyes. "Then she lied to me about it. She point blank lied to my face."

Inara spoke for the first time. "It was obviously for your protection, Chuck," she said quietly.

Chuck laughed bitterly. "Inara, I'm twenty-eight years old. I think I can handle the truth every so often, no matter how distasteful."

He shook his head. "Thing is, if that hadn't happened…" Chuck stopped, unsure of how to phrase the next part. "If that hadn't happened, I probably would've been with her that night. I wouldn't have had my phone on. I wouldn't have gone out on the Nerd Herd call…"

Chuck looked up at the crew. "I wouldn't be here."

He looked at the ceiling, and then at the floor, not wanting to meet anybody's eyes, especially Kaylee's. "Excuse me," Chuck whispered, leaving the room quickly.

* * *

**2:17 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
Over Persephone**

_Enterprise_ hit the leading edge of Persephone's atmosphere at Mach 15, flying like a wounded duck. The shuttle began shaking violently as she passed through the atmosphere, causing Lorenz and Tweedum to exchange a worried look.

Casey had been looking over at Sarah, disturbed by her breathing, which was growing more and more irregular. He turned his view back to the front just in time to see the look pass between the two astronauts. "What?" he demanded.

"Nothing," Tweedum said quietly. "It's just… I don't like some of these readings I'm getting from the wings."

Casey's eyes widened. "You're not… you're not talking like _Columbia_ readings here, are you?"

Tweedum shrugged. "Similar," he said. "I think the leading edges of the wings are sealed, but I'm a little worried about the tail of the shuttle."

Without warning, the shuttle lurched – and for a moment, the only sound besides the rushing wind was the demoralizing sound of the pulse drive winding down to a stop. "Oh, that's bad," Lorenz muttered.

"Yeah, I gathered," Casey said sarcastically. "Now what?"

Lorenz blew out his breath. "Now, we do this like a traditional shuttle landing – except my flaps are responding very sluggishly. I think the heat's ripping them up pretty badly."

"That, and we don't know if there's a strip in range that we can deadstick it to," Tweedum added. "When we land at Edwards or Kennedy, we always have a designated atmospheric entry point."

Tweedum turned his back on Casey and hit the radio. "Mayday, mayday, this is shuttle _Enterprise_. We have suffered serious structural damage and are without power."

Almost immediately, there was a response. "Enterprise_, this is Utopia Planitia Shipyard. Do you have functioning computers?_"

Lorenz turned to Casey, who gave him a thumbs up. "We're good," Lorenz said to Tweedum.

"That's affirmative," Tweedum replied.

"_Copy, _Enterprise_. Please pull up Utopia Planitia Shipyards in your computer and calculate whether or not you can make our landing strip._"

Casey was already typing furiously. "We're about fifty miles out," he reported.

Lorenz closed his eyes for a moment, doing mental math. "Going Mach 6 right now," he whispered. "Fifty miles… seventy-seven thousand feet."

He clicked the microphone. "Utopia Planitia, that's affirmative. We CAN make the strip, but it's going to be very close."

"_Roger that, _Enterprise_. We'll clear traffic, give you a straight in path. Please change your transponder to 7700._"

For the next minute or so, there was almost no sound in the cabin, save for controls clicking and wind rushing. Then Tweedum spoke.

"Uh, Rick, we've got a BIG problem," he said.

Lorenz looked over at Tweedum. "What's going on?"

"We must have some drag on the back end," Tweedum said worriedly. "Our speed is dropping WAY too fast. Projected glide path ends almost two miles short of the strip right now."

Lorenz went silent for a moment. "Fuck," he finally spat. "Options?"

"Only one," Tweedum replied. "Fire the retros again."

"Surely you can't be serious," Lorenz said in disbelief. "We have no idea what sort of damage has been done to the tail of the shuttle. We could very well fire those things and have them blow off the tail. Then we're TRULY fucked."

"Yeah, well, the other option is we crash in a neighborhood, and boom goes the dynamite," Tweedum responded sarcastically. "It's our only viable option, Rick. We have to do it."

Lorenz was silent for a moment. "Alright. Do it."

Tweedum reached out, flipped up the safety cover on the retros, and hit the switch. Nothing happened for a moment –

And then, as if _Enterprise_ had been kicked in the butt, she rocketed forward and upward. Her speed had dropped to just over Mach 1 as she passed over the city of Eavesdown, but the added boost shot her back up over the Mach again. The enormous sonic boom shattered windows for nearly a mile around _Enterprise_.

After ten seconds, however, the retros cut out again. "Out of fuel," Tweedum reported. "But it looks like we've got JUST enough speed to cross the airfield boundary before stall speed."

"Copy that," Lorenz replied. The airfield was now visible, directly ahead of _Enterprise_.

As the fence was about to disappear under the shuttle's nose, a mechanized voice began speaking insistently. "STALL, STALL, STALL."

Casey looked over at Sarah Walker, blissfully unaware of what was going on. "Goddammit," he whispered, closing his eyes. He braced himself for the inevitable impact –

Only to hear the sweet sound of rubber tires hitting pavement. Tweedum thrust both fists up in the air with a wordless whoop of victory.

Lorenz shook his head and sighed in relief. Reaching out, he deployed the parachute, dragging the space shuttle to a stop.

As the shuttle rolled out, a convoy of emergency vehicles approached it. "The whole fire brigade's here," Tweedum remarked. Then, a grin on his face, he turned to Lorenz.

"By the way, I'm completely serious. And stop calling me Shirley."


	13. Abort, Retry, Ignore

_**Chuck vs. the Future **_**Redux, Chapter 13 – "Abort, Retry, Ignore"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):  
**Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
Bryce Larkin – Matthew Bomer  
Captain Mike Tweedum – Jason Bateman  
Major Rick Lorenz – Michael Biehn  
John Casey – Adam Baldwin  
Mal Reynolds – Nathan Fillion  
Kaylee Frye – Jewel Staite  
Jayne Cobb – Adam Baldwin  
Dr. Ross – George Clooney  
Inara Serra – Morena Baccarin

**SHIPPER CONTENT WARNING: one super low point and one super high point – with a mere three words each!**

* * *

**USS **_**Excelsior**_**, NCC-2000  
Somewhere in Beta Quadrant  
Stardate 9012.7**

"Captain's Log, USS _Excelsior_, Stardate 9012.7, Captain Jennifer Burton recording," Jenny spoke in the privacy of her ready room. "_Excelsior_ has finished its first five year cruise, having extensively catalogued gaseous anomalies in Beta Quadrant. We are currently heading back to Earth, for a dual purpose: 1) the _Excelsior_ class of starships is recommended for overhaul every five years, and 2) the Federation flagship, USS _Enterprise_, is being decommissioned one week from today."

Jenny fell silent. _Enterprise_ had been commanded by her old colleague, John Casey, for nearly twenty-five years. However, she was of the old _Constitution_ class, and Starfleet had decided that it was time for those vessels to be retired.

"With the retirement of the _Constitution_ class of starships, we are left severely shorthanded until such time as the _Ambassador_ class enters service," Jenny continued. "I worry that _Excelsior_ may be assigned to spatial defense duties for a time, rather than continuing her charter of seeking new life and new civilizations, and boldly going where no man has gone-"

Jenny's words cut off as a severe tremor ran through _Excelsior_. "What the hell?"

She dashed out of her ready room onto the bridge. Commander Chuck Bartowski rose from the captain's chair as soon as Jenny entered the bridge. "Captain has the conn," he said as Jenny crossed the bridge.

"Mr. Tweedum, report?" Jenny asked.

"We just passed through the leading edge of some sort of shockwave," Lieutenant Commander Mike Tweedum replied. "I'm not sure what it is – sensors have been unable to identify the type of wave."

"Analysis?"

"Contains a high degree of alpha radiation," came the voice of Jenny's science officer from behind her. She turned to see him –

And suddenly couldn't remember his name. She swore she knew it – hell, she KNEW she knew him – the unruly mop of black hair and the piercing blue eyes were familiar to her as _Excelsior_'s warp drive – but why couldn't she remember his name?

As she shook off the thought, a dull headache began to form behind her left ear. "What does that indicate, Lieutenant?" she asked, ignoring the headache.

The science officer shrugged. "If I didn't know better, I'd say a moon or small planet had suffered a violent explosion," he replied.

"CAPTAIN!"

The voice of Jenny's tactical officer, Commander Rick Lorenz, turned her back toward the front. "Commander?"

"Captain, we have a Type 4 shockwave approaching at nearly warp 2," he said, a distinct amount of fear in his voice.

"Onscreen," Jenny ordered.

The science officer hit a few buttons, and the screen lit up –

"Dear God," Jenny whispered, standing. "Shields up. SHIELDS!"

Rick Lorenz frantically entered commands into his console, but the shockwave was coming too quickly. "All hands, brace for impact!" Jenny shouted.

The shockwave slammed into _Excelsior_'s bow head-on, sending the starship tumbling. Jenny grasped the arms of her command chair, trying desperately not to be thrown from the chair.

She watched helplessly as Mike Tweedum tumbled out of his chair, rolling across the bridge. The bridge lights dimmed, and the image on the screen flickered –

But it wasn't static that it was flickering with. Rather, it was an image of what looked distinctly like a hospital room.

"What the hell?"

* * *

**3:30 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
February 9****th****, 2519  
Eavesdown General Hospital  
Eavesdown, Persephone**

Her eyes opened, the view in her field of vision going from the bridge of the _Excelsior_ to the hospital room that had been on the screen.

Her head was pounding. It felt like she had been taken out behind the woodshed and beaten. With a Mack truck.

She tried to sit up, but quickly discovered that her head was restrained. She attempted to lift an arm to undo the restraint – but discovered that those were also restrained.

"Well, this is bullshit," she muttered – and instantly, a head popped up. John Casey.

"You're awake!" he exclaimed.

"So it would appear, Casey," she replied, a slight smile on her face. Then she frowned. "Where am I?"

Casey sighed. "Eavesdown General Hospital," he replied. "_Enterprise_ lost its main drive. You ended up going headfirst into a bulkhead, and you ended up with a severe concussion and a slight skull fracture."

"Jesus," she replied. "I'm glad I don't remember that." Then she frowned. "Wait a second. Why are we here?"

Casey frowned as well. "Well, we're looking for –"

"Chuck," she finished. "I know that. But why are we looking for Chuck? When did he go missing?"

Casey's expression turned to one of concern. "You don't remember?"

"I really don't," she admitted.

"Fulcrum sent him here," Casey replied. "We came chasing after."

Her eyes narrowed. "Fulcrum?"

"Yeah," Casey said. "Fulcrum did this."

"What's Fulcrum?"

Casey's expression then turned to one of alarm. "Uh, you know what Ful-"

Just then, the door opened – and the man with the mop of unruly black hair and the piercing blue eyes walked in. "Sarah!" he exclaimed. "You're awake!"

She made a face. "Who?" she asked. "And who are you?" She knew him – she KNEW she knew him! But yet…

His jaw dropped. "I'm Bryce Larkin," he replied. "You know me. Very well, I might add. And you're Sarah, remember? Sarah Walker?"

She laughed in disbelief. "I don't know who you've mistaken me for," she replied. "But I'm Jenny Burton. Always have been, always will be."

* * *

**5:00 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
Liberty City, Bellerephon**

Chuck Bartowski was pissed.

This installation job was supposed to take four days. And yet, he was now on day ten. Had this been a Nerd Herd job, heads would have been rolling five days ago.

But no. Not here. He had to deal with bureaucratic bureaucrap, and it was starting to piss him off. To make matters worse, one of his two assistants was completely incompetent when it came to computers.

Had it just been him and Kaylee doing the install, the job would have gone much more smoothly. But no, Mal had insisted that Jayne go along with them, because apparently, Chuck couldn't be trusted alone with Kaylee.

Chuck supposed that that was a reasonable consideration on Mal's part, considering that a week and a half beforehand, he had told the crew the story of how he got there, then figured out what it would've taken for him not to be there, and locked himself in his cabin for a day.

When he chose to emerge, it was like the morning after he ditched Kaylee at _Serenity_ all over again. Mal just about ripped him a new one for doing something else to hurt Kaylee.

This time, though, Chuck didn't go for the material apology. He just went directly to Kaylee, apologized for being an insensitive ass, and then, completely unintentionally, went in for the kill. With utter sincerity, he had looked her in the eyes, and said, "I love you."

She had been a much happier woman since then. However, Mal still harbored a serious degree of mistrust toward Chuck, and so had ended up making Jayne go along on the install job, so that, in Mal's words, "nothing untoward happened."

Then, Bellerephon happened. Chuck had gone in with a mule-full of computers, software, phones, and all sorts of high-tech goodies. He was supposed to be doing a full upgrade and install on the capitol building's tech.

However, things went wrong from the very beginning. It turned out that the computer network in the capitol building was nearly seventy years old. Chuck ended up running nearly six MILES of new cat-5 cable throughout the building – and quite frankly, that had been the only thing that Jayne had been useful for.

Then, there was an issue with the software. Chuck had originally planned to use Blue Sun Mac OS 32.4 – the most recent release from the Blue Sun labs on Sihnon – but it turned out that Bellerephon's governor's daughter's boyfriend's aunt's dog's trainer's cousin – or something like that – was the CFO of Microsoft, and so Chuck had ended up having to reformat every single machine and install Windows Alliance.

More than once, Kaylee had caught him muttering under his breath about how he was "five hundred years in the future and STILL dealing with fucking Windows," whereupon she would attempt to talk him down. Most of the time, it worked, but every so often, the stupidity of Bellerephon's government overwhelmed Chuck to a degree that he would have to leave the building and walk around for a while in order to calm down.

However, as day ten drew to a close, Chuck was guardedly optimistic that he would be able to leave Bellerephon's capitol building that night and not return. The last of the machines had been installed, the software was all up to specs. All Chuck had to do now was bring the servers for the computers and the phones online and run a series of tests.

"Alright, Windows, you bitch of all time," Chuck muttered as the servers came online.

"Say what now?" Jayne asked.

"Never mind," Chuck replied. "It's just an I.T. thing."

"Roger that," Jayne replied, sounding so much like John Casey that Chuck actually did a double-take. Chuck shook his head, rubbing his very tired eyes as he reached the login screen for the computer server.

"So," Jayne asked as Chuck typed in his password, "you and Kaylee… you, uh, made the beast of two backs yet?"

Chuck's finger froze over the "Enter" key as his head swiveled toward Jayne. "I beg your pardon?"

"Ain't the first time I've asked," Jayne replied. "Just curious, that's all."

Chuck shook his head in disbelief. "I haven't heard 'the beast of two backs' since I was about fourteen," he replied. "And as for whether or not we have, that's simply none of your gorram business."

He hit the "Enter" key on the computer server, and had turned to the phone server when he froze. "Did I just say 'gorram'?" he asked Jayne.

Jayne grinned. "Sure did, Earth-boy," he said. "You're gettin' more like us all the time. Also, you ain't done jack diddly bullsquat with Kaylee, have you?"

"How could you possibly know that?" Chuck asked indignantly as he typed in the password for the phone server.

"'Cause if you had tapped that, you'd be braggin' about it like as if you'd just won the lottery," Jayne shot back. "You're a man, that's how men work."

Chuck shook his head as he logged into the phone server. "Alright, let's do these tests," he said.

He clicked on an icon – and without warning, the entire room went dark. The screens for both servers went blank, except for a two line message:

**FATAL EXCEPTION.  
Abort, Retry, Ignore?**

"Gorram it all to rutting hell," Chuck muttered.

Jayne snorted in amusement. "You and Kaylee ain't done shit, have you?" his voice cut through the darkness.

Chuck sighed. "Eff my life."

* * *

**8:30 AM, Alliance Mean Time  
February 10****th****, 2519  
Eavesdown General Hospital**

John Casey, Bryce Larkin, Mike Tweedum, and Rick Lorenz all sat in the hospital's meeting room, looking at Dr. Ross in stunned silence. "What the hell exactly does that mean?" Casey finally asked.

Dr. Ross sighed. "Selective repressive amnesia is a very odd trick of the mind," he replied. "Basically, Agent Walker's brain has blocked out memories that have negative connotations. She remembers things that she associates with good – you, for example, Major Casey, and this Chuck Bartowski fellow – but those that she associates with bad…"

His voice trailed off. "Wait a second," Bryce objected. "So what the hell does it mean that she doesn't remember me at ALL?"

Dr. Ross looked at Bryce. "You said that you two had a relationship," he said.

"That's correct," Bryce replied.

"Tumultuous?" Dr. Ross asked. "Did you have trouble? Arguments?"

Bryce sighed. "Fairly frequently," he admitted.

"That's why," Dr. Ross stated with a degree of finality. "Her mind associates you with a large number of unhappy events, and so has blocked the memory of you."

"Can her memories be restored?" Mike Tweedum asked.

"In theory, once the brusing on her brain heals, she and her memory should be fine," Dr. Ross said. "However, it's going to take a while to heal, and even after it does, the brain and memory are both funny things. It could take her years to remember certain things."

Major Lorenz spoke for the first time. "When will she be fit for space travel?"

Dr. Ross rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "If absolutely necessary, I would be willing to release her for travel in seventy-two hours," he said. "However, it would really be for the best if she stayed here at least another week."

Lorenz looked at Casey. "Thing is, Doc," Casey said, "our ship will be out of the shipyards on the fourteenth, and we've really got to get back to looking for this guy."

Dr. Ross nodded. "I understand," he said. "If she elects to depart then, she will have to sign a waiver releasing us from any liability."

"I'll do it," Sarah's voice came from the doorway. The five men turned to see her there, sitting in a wheelchair, her face pale but determined.

"I have to find Chuck," she said quietly. "I have to."

She looked at the floor. "I may not know my own name," she said, "but if there is one thing I know more than anything else, it's this:"

She looked back up, making eye contact with Casey, then Bryce, then Casey again. "I love him."

* * *

**11:58 AM, Alliance Mean Time  
**_**Serenity**_

Chuck stumbled out of bed just before noon. He was alone in his bed when he woke up, so he took his time getting ready for the day.

When he finally left his quarters, he could smell coffee – real coffee. If there was one thing Bellerephon was good for, it was growing coffee beans.

He followed the scent to the common room, where he found Mal Reynolds, sitting with a book in one hand, a coffee cup in the other. "Mornin', sunshine!" Mal said as Chuck entered the room. "Fun night last night?"

Chuck snorted. "If you consider staying up till four in the morning getting Windows Alliance NT online to be fun…"

"Aw, more's the pity," Mal said, feigning disappointment. "Here I thought you'd been up late with my mechanic or something."

"Sadly, no," Chuck replied. "That would've been nice. Where's the coffee?"

"Yonder," Mal said, pointing toward the kitchen. He started to take a drink of coffee – and then stopped, regarding Chuck over the top of his coffee cup. "You and Kaylee… you haven't… well, you know…"

"Made the beast of two backs?" Chuck asked sarcastically.

Mal raised an eyebrow. "Jayne been askin' you 'bout this too?"

"How'd you EVER guess?" Chuck laughed.

"He says that all the time," Mal replied. "Don't know what it is about him… think he's damaged in the head."

"I would not disagree with that assessment," Chuck said. "Anyway… not that it's necessarily any more of your business than it is of Jayne's… but no."

Mal shook his head. "Well, I can't say that I understand that," he said. "You two are on each other more'n a Reaver on a derelict ship, but you still haven't sealed the deal."

"Yeah, I don't get it either," Chuck replied with a shrug. "Thing is, though, I like her well enough that, well, it doesn't really matter so much to me."

"The reason, which I don't expect either of you men to understand, is that she's scared," Inara's voice floated into the room. She followed a moment later.

"She really likes you, Chuck," Inara continued, taking a seat at the table with the two men. "In fact, I fully believe her when she says she's in love with you. There's no question about it – I've never seen her look at anybody the way she looks at you. She never even looked at Simon that way."

"I've seen her castin' a few glances at _Serenity_," Mal muttered.

"Shut up, Mal," Inara said. "Chuck, she's scared. She's scared that if she has sex with you, you'll stop looking at her as a young woman who you really care about, and start looking at her as a sex object."

"What?!" Chuck exclaimed. "That's ridiculous! I'd never do that!"

"Well, you know that, and I know that," Inara replied.

"I don't necessarily know that," Mal interrupted. "No treatin' my crew like sex objects, Mr. Bartowski. Understood?"

Inara turned to Mal. "Malcolm Reynolds, be quiet, or you will lose… privileges."

Mal's eyes widened. "Shutting up now."

Inara's attention returned to Chuck. "My point is, Chuck, that she doesn't know that either. She's afraid that if she goes too far with you, she'll lose the relationship that she's formed with you, which quite honestly, is the most fulfilling relationship and even friendship I've ever seen her have."

She paused, but it was clear that the Companion was not done. Chuck looked her in the eye. "That's not all, is it?"

"No, Chuck, it's not," Inara said with a sigh. "This part, I don't have to figure out on my own – she's told me. She's scared that you're going to leave. She knows that your friends from the twenty-first century might find a way to get here, and you're going to leave with them. Her biggest fear is that she'll get in too deep with you, and then, when you leave, she's going to be heartbroken."

"But they might not ever come," Chuck protested. "I don't know that they even have the technology to do so."

"But what if they do, Chuck?" Inara asked.

"What are you going to do then?"


	14. Valentine's Day

_**Chuck vs. the Future **_**Redux – Chapter 14, "Valentine's Day"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):  
**Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
Inara Serra – Morena Baccarin  
Reginald McLellan – Patrick Stewart  
Security Guard – Kal Penn  
John Casey – Adam Baldwin  
Bryce Larkin – Matthew Bomer  
Mal Reynolds – Nathan Fillion  
Dockmaster Michael Scott – Steve Carell  
Major Rick Lorenz – Michael Biehn  
Captain Mike Tweedum – Jason Bateman  
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
Frank Mullins – Damian Lewis  
Jayne Cobb – Adam Baldwin  
Kaylee Frye – Jewel Staite  
Simon Tam – Sean Maher  
Zoe Washburne – Gina Torres  
River Tam – Summer Glau

**CONTENT WARNING: This chapter contains content that may not be appropriate for Charah shippers. Read with discretion.**

* * *

**10:30 AM, Alliance Mean Time  
February 14****th****, 2519  
Eavesdown, Persephone**

Chuck was back at Earth-That-Was Antiquities. As he walked through the door, he cast a longing look at the Ms. Pac-Man game, but with only two people knowing that he was here, he knew it might look very odd for him to show up back at _Serenity_ with the giant old arcade game.

That, and he wasn't sure how the heck he would fit it into the herder.

"Welcome back, sir!" Reginald McLellan called as Chuck walked in. "Back for more music?"

Chuck grinned and nodded. "Most definitely," he replied. "Also looking for an old electronic component."

McLellan narrowed his eyes. "Anything in particular?"

"Welllll…" Chuck said slowly. "Do you have a stereo component, an in-dash head unit for an Earth-That-Was car that would read SDM cards?"

The museum owner looked at the ceiling for a moment, in thought. "As a matter of fact, I believe I do," he replied. "I'll be right back."

As McLellan went into the back to search for the ancient stereo unit, Chuck turned to the shelf of music SDM cards and began flipping through them. By the time McLellan returned, five minutes later, Chuck had retrieved a good handful of music from Van Halen, the Airborne Toxic Event, Outkast, Fleet Foxes, and for good measure, one album each from Carrie Underwood and Eminem. "Might as well expose Kaylee to as much old Earth music as I possibly can," Chuck muttered to himself as he headed back to the counter.

He dumped the handful of cards on the counter. McLellan looked at the counter, then back up at Chuck. "A music connoisseur, I see, sir," he said as he rang up the total. "Your total comes to two thousand, five hundred sixty credits."

Chuck let out a low whistle. "That head unit must be EXPENSIVE," he said.

"Well, sir, it's a Pioneer model – very well-built – and it's still in working condition," McLellan explained. "The fact that it still works is what makes it so expensive."

"Fair enough," Chuck replied, digging out his wallet to remove some of the credits he had received for the Garmin unit. As he removed the credits, his phone started ringing.

Smiling apologetically, Chuck handed over a handful of money, shoved his wallet back in his pocket, and retrieved his iPhone. He was about to answer it when McLellan spoke.

"Good Lord," the old man said, a touch of awe. "Is that a WORKING Blue Sun iPhone?"

Chuck grinned. "This one actually predates Blue Sun," he replied, showing McLellan the Apple logo on the back. "And yes, it works."

"An APPLE iPhone," McLellan whispered. "That's worth a small fortune!"

"I sort of figured as much," Chuck said, as the iPhone started into its second run-through of the _Torchwood_ theme. "But… I'm a little attached to it. Um, if you'll excuse me?"

"Of course, of course."

Chuck stepped away from the counter and answered the phone. "Hello?"

"_Chuck, it's Inara._"

"Inara!" Chuck replied in glee. "How goes the shopping?"

He could almost hear Inara smile at the other end. "_Amazingly well,_" she replied. "_You have no idea how happy this is going to make her._"

"Oh, I have some idea," Chuck said, a grin on his face. "I figure that everybody deserves at least one Valentine's Day in their life."

"_That's the other thing_," Inara said. "_I did some reading on this Valentine's Day of yours. You're quite the romantic, aren't you?_"

"Hey," Chuck replied, "never let it be said that Chuck Bartowski was lacking in the romance department."

"_Certainly not,_" Inara laughed. "_I'll see you back on _Serenity."

"See you there."

Chuck ended the call and slid the phone back into his pocket. "Here's your change, Mr…. Bartowski, was it?" McLellan asked.

"Indeed," Chuck replied. As he took the change and his bag, something in the display case caught his eye.

Chuck crouched down to look at the small sterling silver four-leaf clover charm in the case. "Can I see that four-leaf clover?"

McLellan raised an eyebrow. "Certainly," he replied. Sliding open the back of the case, he reached in and removed it, handing it to Chuck.

Chuck held it up, examining it closely. "It looks like a tiny locket," he mused. "Does it open?"

McLellan shrugged. "It appears that it should," he said, "but it's centuries old, and as far as I know, nobody's ever been able to open it." He smiled. "There's a legend here on Persephone, that it's charmed – bad pun, I know – and that only the right person can open it."

"Really," Chuck breathed. He kept looking at the charm, seemingly mesmerized.

McLellan cocked his head to the side. "You know, I can let you have it for two hundred credits."

Chuck's attention snapped from the charm to McLellan. "Really?" he asked. "You'd sell it? I thought it had a legend with it."

"Legends are a dime a dozen," McLellan laughed. "Food, on the other hand… much pricier."

"Gotcha," Chuck said. "Well…"

He looked down at the handful of credits. Pulling out four fifty-credit slips, he handed them to McLellan. "I'll take it," he said.

"Thank you, Mr. Bartowski," McLellan said as Chuck walked out the door, bag in hand.

McLellan turned to go into the back room – but something was bothering him. He wasn't quite sure what –

"CHARLES BARTOWSKI!" he yelped, suddenly realizing.

Dashing back to the counter, McLellan leapt over it with a spryness that belied his years. Dashing out the front door, he looked both directions. "MR. BARTOWSKI!" he shouted. No response.

The young man was gone. McLellan turned and pulled the door of his shop back open. He flipped the sign from "OPEN" to "CLOSED", shut the door, and with shaking hands, locked it.

McLellan ran down the street to where his motor scooter was parked and got on. He fired up the tiny engine, and took off down the street as fast as he could.

Twenty minutes later, he sped onto the grounds of the Utopia Planitia Shipyards – the last known location of the agents from the National Security Agency. He looked around – yes, their transport was still parked on the tarmac, being prepped for launch.

He screeched to a halt at a security checkpoint. "I… need to speak… to Major John Casey!" he panted, out of breath.

The Alliance security guard eyed him warily. "Name?"

"Reginald McLellan," he replied. "Museum owner."

The guard spoke briefly into his radio, and then listened. A moment later, he nodded. "You can go in," he said. "Major Casey will be waiting for you in the hospital lobby."

Nodding gratefully, McLellan sped off, following the base's signs toward the hospital. When he reached the hospital, he sped right up to the door and parked his scooter there, ignoring the signs telling him to do otherwise.

He barreled through the sliding doors – and almost ran right into John Casey. "Mr. McLellan?" Casey asked, concern in his eyes. "What's going on?

"Your – your Charles Bartowski!" McLellan gasped. "He's HERE!"

Casey's jaw dropped. "HERE?! As in, on Persephone?!"

McLellan nodded. "Where is he exactly?" Casey asked excitedly.

"I don't know," McLellan replied, shaking his head. "He disappeared before I realized who he was. But – but can't you track him, using his comm device?"

Casey's eyes narrowed. "His what?"

"He was using, a, uh, an old Apple iPhone!" McLellan exclaimed. "Surely you should be able to track him with that!"

"I'll be damned," Casey whispered, a huge smile spreading across his face. Slinging his backpack off his shoulder, he pulled out his Blackberry and turned it on. As soon as it was on, he started up the "Track Bartowski" program that the NSA had installed –

And there it was, larger than life. The signal from Chuck's iPhone was less than ten miles away.

"Thank you, Mr. McLellan," Casey said gratefully. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

He turned and dashed down the hallway. "LARKIN!" he shouted. "LARKIN!"

Bryce popped out of Sarah's hospital room. "What's going on?"

"WE'VE GOT HIM!"

* * *

**11:35 AM, Alliance Mean Time  
**_**Serenity**_

Chuck pulled into the cargo bay and brought the Herder to a quick halt. "You're late," Mal groused as Chuck got out of the car.

"Five minutes," Chuck shot back as he started tying down the Herder's front wheels.

"I wanted to be off this rock at 11:30," Mal retorted. "So YOU'RE LATE."

"Fine," Chuck said. "I'm late."

"Much better," Mal replied with a smile as _Serenity_ began to move upward. "Now, you got everything you need?"

"Indeed I do," Chuck said. "Provided, of course, that we aren't leaving Inara behind."

"Unlike some people, I understand the meaning of punctuality," Inara's voice said from the catwalk above. Chuck looked up at her, and saw the impish smile on her face.

"Isn't that special," Mal grumbled as Chuck headed toward Inara.

"How much do I owe you?" Chuck asked Inara.

Inara shook her head. "Consider it a gift."

Chuck looked at Inara with surprise on his face. "No," he objected. "I-I couldn't… that had to have cost you quite a bit!"

Inara's smile softened a little. "Chuck, you make Kaylee happy," she said quietly. "It's worth every penny."

* * *

**11:45 A.M., Alliance Mean Time**  
**Eavesdown Docks**

Bryce's Trans Am blasted into the docks area at nearly eighty miles per hour, scattering people in front of it like snow before a plow. Bryce followed Casey's rapid-fire directions, turning and driving through the maze of the docks.

"Stop up here!" Casey ordered.

Bryce brought the Pontiac sliding to a halt in a cloud of dust. "This was the last reported location of Chuck's iPhone," Casey mused, looking at the empty berth. "Okay, Berth 32A. Let's go talk to the dockmaster."

A moment later, the two men walked through the door of the dockmaster's office – _Michael Scott_, the nameplate on the door read. "May I help you gentlemen?" Dockmaster Scott asked as they walked in.

"I need to know what ship just took off from Berth 32A," Casey said without preamble.

Scott shook his head. "I'm sorry," he replied. "That information is confidential."

Casey frowned, then pulled out his NSA identification card. "How about now?"

Michael Scott shrugged. "Alliance influence is limited here, at best," he said.

With an ominous growl, Casey pulled Bryce aside. "What did Lorenz say about American currency?" he asked quietly.

"That it's worth pretty much a fortune, I think," Bryce replied.

"Right," Casey said. Turning back to Scott, he pulled out his wallet, and removed a twenty dollar bill. "And now?"

Michael Scott's eyes widened as he took the bill from John Casey. "The ship was _Serenity_, captained by Malcolm Reynolds," he replied. Looking from the bill to Casey, he continued, "Would you like their navsat tracking beacon?"

Casey grinned. "That would be most helpful."

* * *

Twenty minutes later, the Trans Am roared back onto the base at Utopia Planitia. "We don't have time to get the Pontiac loaded!" Bryce said, a note of worry in his voice.

"Don't worry about the damn car," Casey snapped. "Park it here, we'll go get Bartowski, and come back for it. End of story."

The two men hit the hospital lobby at a dead run. As they passed through the cafeteria, Casey spotted Lorenz and Tweedum. "YOU TWO!" he shouted, coming to a stop.

The two shuttle pilots looked over at Casey. "Yes?" Lorenz asked.

"Go get the shuttle pre-flighted!" Casey ordered. "We've got an actual location for Bartowski!"

Mike Tweedum's eyes widened. "Holy shit!" he exclaimed, shooting to his feet. He ran out the door, Rick Lorenz right behind him.

Casey took off running again, and skidded to a stop outside Sarah's room. Bursting through the door, he asked, "Walker, you sign that waiver?"

It took Sarah a moment to respond – she was still re-learning to respond to the name "Sarah Walker." But nonetheless, she looked up. "Yeah, a couple hours ago," she replied. "Why?"

"We found him!"

Within seconds, Sarah was out of the hospital bed. She started pulling every IV and electrode off her body, setting multiple monitors beeping. Setting modesty aside, she shucked her hospital gown and started pulling on her Alliance uniform.

Five minutes later, the three agents were headed out the door of the hospital, walking in deference to Sarah's still rather fragile condition. Five minutes after that, they were onboard the shuttle. Lorenz had already received emergency clearance for takeoff, and started taxiing as soon as the hatch was sealed.

Unfortunately, in all the hustle and bustle of an emergency takeoff, nobody had thought to make sure that Frank Mullins' airlock-adjacent cell was properly closed.

And Frank Mullins had definitely noticed. He sat back on his bunk with a smile.

It wouldn't be long, now.

* * *

**2:15 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
**_**Serenity**_

Chuck had his hand deep inside the Herder's guts. Soldering this new/old head unit into place was being more difficult than he had figured.

First of all, it turned out that the wiring harness for the stock Toyota head unit wasn't compatible with the mid-21st century Pioneer unit. As a result, Chuck had had to carefully connect the proper wires directly to the head unit, based on what wires had gone to what pins on the old Toyota unit.

He was really hoping that he had gotten it right.

"So, you're doin' this all to get laid, right?" Jayne Cobb's voice intruded into Chuck's thoughts.

Carefully withdrawing his hand from behind the stereo, Chuck looked out the Herder's open window at Jayne, shaking his head. "Not really," he replied, irritated. "I'm doing this because I want to make Kaylee happy." He gave Jayne a look. "And besides, why are you always so interested in whether or not Kaylee and I are having sex?"

Jayne shrugged. "Lack of anything better to do?" he replied. "You gotta understand, out here in the black, you gotta go with what you can get."

"Riiiight," Chuck drawled, shaking his head. Turning his attention back to the stereo, he slid the head unit into the DIN slot. "Make yourself useful, and reconnect the negative terminal on the battery, would you, Jayne?"

Jayne nodded and stood. He stepped around the front end of the Yaris. A moment later, the overhead light in the cabin came on.

"You clear?" Chuck called.

"Yeah!"

Chuck inserted the key into the ignition. "Here goes nothing," he muttered, turning the key to the accessories position.

But, to his delight, the lights on the old Pioneer head unit lit up. "Sweet," Chuck muttered. Reaching into the bag on the shotgun seat, he withdrew the Ataris' _So Long Astoria_. Very carefully, he slid the SDM card into the reader –

And a moment later, the strains of the title track filled the little car. A huge grin spread across Chuck's face. "AWESOME."

* * *

**6:30 PM, Alliance Mean Time**

The continuous thrum of _Serenity_'s engines filled the small engine room. It was a soothing sound to Kaylee Frye, who was lounging in her hammock, reading a book.

There was nothing wrong with the engines, nor did Kaylee expect there to be. However, the purpose of the hammock was so that she could be close to the engines at ALL TIMES when they were crossing open space. Multiple incidents had taught her that leaving the engines alone was not such a good idea.

Kaylee was almost to the end of the sixth _Harry Potter_ book. She had bought all seven of them YEARS before, but had just a few months before begun reading them. Severus Snape had just sent Albus Dumbledore tumbling from the parapets of Hogwarts when her concentration was interrupted.

"Kaylee, please come to the bridge," Mal's voice sounded over the intercom. Kaylee frowned and moved toward the intercom to ask exactly why, but the channel went dead before she reached the panel.

With a sigh, Kaylee set her book on the deck and headed out of the engine room. She descended the stairs into the corridor, passing through the common room. As she went through, she completely failed to notice the three sets of eyes peeking up at her over the kitchen counter.

"Okay," Simon whispered as soon as she passed. Zoe and Inara both popped up on either side of him.

"We have maybe ten minutes," Zoe muttered. "Let's get a move on."

Kaylee, meanwhile, was entering what appeared to be a deserted control room. It looked like _Serenity_ was set on autopilot – and there was something sitting on the navigator's station.

There was a napkin there, with what looked distinctly like a strawberry sitting on top of it. Kaylee raised an eyebrow, and picked up the strawberry. She bit into it –

Oh yes, it was very definitely real. And fresh, too. "Mmmm," Kaylee moaned. Taking another bite of the strawberry, she looked down at the napkin.

There was a note written on it. "St. Valentine would approve," it said. "Follow the Yellow Brick Road."

Sitting next to the napkin was the remote control for the Herder. "Well, this must have something to do with it," Kaylee muttered to herself. Picking up the remote, she hit the unlock button. No result. Same with the lock and tailgate buttons.

"Huh," she said. One last button to push –

And as she depressed the panic button, a series of yellow lights lit up along the floor, leading back into the corridor. Sure enough, they looked oddly like bricks. "The Yellow Brick Road," Kaylee said quietly. "Follow the Yellow Brick Road."

Kaylee followed the trail of yellow lights out into the corridor – where they almost immediately stopped at the door to her quarters. "Well, THAT was anti-climactic," Kaylee grumbled. But…

The last light appeared to be arrow shaped, actually POINTING at her door. Perhaps there was more to this.

Kaylee swung open the door, and climbed down the ladder. Jumping down the last few rungs to the deck, she turned around and looked across her room.

"Oh my God."

* * *

As soon as River heard Kaylee's feet hit the deck below, she let go of the pipe running along the ceiling of the corridor and gracefully dropped to the corridor deck.

Opening the plastic bag in her right hand, River ran down the corridor, scattering sunflower petals behind her. When she reached the spare shuttle, she tossed the last of the petals on the ground, and then took off toward the common room.

"It's done," she reported upon arrival.

"Good," said Mal. "Now make yourself scarce, little one."

* * *

Kaylee stared in astonishment at the proverbial little black dress hanging at the foot of her bed. Normally, the big wedding cake-style gown that Mal had bought her for that ridiculous ball on Persephone hung there, but Kaylee REALLY liked its replacement.

She moved toward the dress – and discovered that sitting on her bed was another napkin, a strawberry on top of it. Kaylee smiled and shook her head. "This has to be Chuck's doing," she whispered to herself, picking up the little red piece of fruit.

As she bit into the strawberry, she looked at the note on the napkin. "For a woman with more grace and beauty than the most respected Companion," it read. "Remember: the flowers are your friend."

Kaylee's smile got bigger. "Okay, so Chuck had Inara's help," she said to herself. She quickly shucked her coveralls, and reached up for the dress –

Only to find a second hanger behind the dress, with black lingerie that Kaylee could only describe as being "barely there" hanging from it. "Wow," she whispered.

Kaylee got dressed as quickly as she could, then turned toward the mirror. Frowning, she pulled her hair back – there wasn't much she could do with it at the moment.

Stepping back from the mirror, she looked at herself. Despite her less-than-pleased opinion of her hair, she couldn't help but smile again. "I look HOT," she whispered.

Kaylee turned back toward her door, and noticed something on the floor that she had apparently overlooked before – a pair of black heels that could be described no other way than "extraordinarily sexy."

Kaylee looked at the shoes – and then looked at the ladder out of her quarters. "Well, I'm not climbing out of here in THOSE," she muttered. Grabbing the shoes, she climbed out of her quarters, back into the corridor.

As she was slipping the shoes onto her feet, she noticed something on the deck – sunflower petals. "The flowers are your friend," she whispered, following the flower petals.

The trail of flowers ended at the door of the spare shuttle. Punching in the access code, Kaylee waited till the door slid open, and then stepped inside.

She was mildly disappointed to find no strawberry in there, but the disappointment was more than made up for by the bouquet of sunflowers sitting in a vase on the shuttle's dashboard. Sitting next to the vase was a piece of paper that had an SDM card taped to it.

Kaylee picked up the note and pulled off the SDM card. "I round up the nerds," was all the note said.

"I round up the nerds?"

Kaylee frowned. This one was a bit of a puzzle. "Rounding up…" she muttered. "Like herding?"

Then her eyes widened as she realized. "Oh, of COURSE!" she exclaimed. "The Nerd _Herder_!"

Kaylee exited the shuttle, headed toward the cargo bay as quickly as she could. As she entered the bay, she saw that the Herder's driver's door was standing open.

She crossed to the car, and slid into the driver's seat. The console was glowing, as was a stereo unit in the middle –

A stereo unit which had an SDM CARD READER! Kaylee almost squealed in glee, especially when she noticed the third strawberry, sitting on a napkin, on the dashboard.

She picked up the strawberry – no note on this napkin. No matter. Kaylee took the SDM card she had gotten in the shuttle, and slid it into the stereo unit.

A moment later, a trumpet fanfare sounded. Kaylee cocked her head to one side – what in heaven's name was this?

And then, somebody's voice started singing, "Love, love, love." "OH!" Kaylee exclaimed. She immediately recognized the Beatles song from the end of _Across the Universe_.

When it reached the chorus, she smiled and started singing along. "All you need is love!"

As she was on the third repetition of that phrase, she heard what sounded distinctly like Chuck's iPhone start ringing. Frowning, she started looking around –

And found the phone sitting next to the gearshift, plugged into its dock. Puzzled, Kaylee ejected the SDM card, shutting the music off, and picked up the phone. Two buttons glowed on its face – "TALK" and "IGNORE."

For one mischievous second, Kaylee toyed with the idea of hitting the "IGNORE" button, but instead, hit the "TALK" button and held it to her ear. "Hello?"

"_So, havin' fun?_" she heard Mal ask.

"Mal?" Kaylee replied. "I definitely was not expectin' to hear your voice comin' out of this phone."

"_Kaylee, you need to take tomorrow off,_" Mal said. "_Don't want you to hold back on enjoyin' tonight any on account of the ship._"

Kaylee frowned. "Mal –"

She heard Mal laugh. "_I can make it an order, Ms. Frye…_"

Kaylee's frown turned into a smile. "Alright, Mal, you win," she said. "But… now what do I do?"

"_I think you should head on up to the common room_," Mal said, and before Kaylee could reply, cut off the call.

"Oookay," Kaylee said slowly. Getting out of the Herder, she pushed the driver's door shut, and headed back forward. A moment later, she entered the common room –

Only to discover that it looked NOTHING like it had fifteen minutes before. A white cloth covered the table, and on top of that were the vase of flowers from the shuttle, along with place settings for two, between which were candles and a bottle of wine –

And standing at the end of the table, clad in a suit and tie, was Chuck Bartowski. "Happy Valentine's Day, Kaylee," he said, grinning. "You look beautiful."

Kaylee couldn't speak. She just stared at Chuck, incredulous. Finally, she managed to ask, "You did this all for me?"

Chuck shrugged. "What can I say," he replied. "I seem to have fallen in love with you." He crossed the room to Kaylee, pulled her to him, and leaned in to kiss her.

Kaylee closed her eyes and let herself fall into the kiss. When she pulled away and re-opened her eyes, she had a huge smile on her face. "I love you too," she whispered.

* * *

**9:25 PM, Alliance Mean Time**  
_**Enterprise**_

It was time.

Frank Mullins reached under the mattress on his bunk, and retrieved the shard of glass he had picked up, way back on Sihnon. Moving to the door of his cell, he pulled it open, and exited into the airlock.

Nobody appeared to be on the lower deck, which was good. Mullins looked at the airlock controls, and pushed the button that said "EQUALIZE."

A moment later, there was a hiss of air, and the airlock hatch popped open. Mullins yawned to pop his ears, and pushed himself out onto the lower deck –

Just in time to run into John Casey, coming out of the lavatory. "What the FU-"

Mullins cut Casey off, stabbing the shard of glass as deeply into Casey's gut as he could. The NSA agent doubled over in pain, and Mullins took advantage of that to bring his knee up into Casey's chin.

Casey tumbled backward, his head smacking against the wall. Satisfied that he was unconscious, Mullins moved toward Casey and pulled his Glock from his belt.

Leaving Casey floating in mid-air, Mullins navigated toward the ladder up to the flight deck and pulled himself upward. "I would advise you all be very still," he said ominously as he emerged.

Four sets of eyes turned very slowly toward him, and then four sets of hands went upward. "Where's Casey?" Sarah Walker asked quietly.

"Unconscious," Mullins replied. "And you're going to join him shortly."

Bryce frowned. "What, you're going to knock us all out?"

"Nah," Mullins said. "I'm going to kill him, and then kill all of you. Since you have oh-so-kindly entered _Serenity_'s navsat beacon into the computer, all I have to do is let the autopilot take me there, and then –" Mullins grinned maliciously "- I use the lasers that the Alliance was so kind as to install on this shuttle, and blow Bartowski to kingdom come."

Sarah looked at Mullins for a moment, and made a snap decision. "When hell freezes over," she growled, and pushed off toward Mullins.

Whether it was because Sarah was still recovering from her head injury or due to simple poor tactics, nobody was quite sure, but Mullins was not expecting an attack from Sarah, and so was completely unprepared for her shoulder to impact his midsection.

Unfortunately, she did not hit him hard enough to dislodge his gun. Even as she got him into a headlock and grabbed at his wrist, he started firing.

"Shit!" Bryce screamed, pulling himself down as close to the deck as he could get. One bullet impacted Captain Tweedum in the left shoulder, another behind Major Lorenz' right ear –

And one bullet plowed directly into the center control panel, causing a shower of sparks to erupt from it. Sarah punched Mullins in the side of the head. Stunned, he let go of the gun, which Sarah grabbed, turned toward the Fulcrum agent, and fired point blank into his face.

A huge gout of Mullins' blood erupted, joining the smaller sprays of Major Lorenz' and Captain Tweedum's blood, floating in the air. There was no question – Frank Mullins was now very dead.

There was silence in the cockpit for a moment. Finally, Sarah spoke.

"Bryce, get him below," she said quietly. "Mike – are you okay?"

Mike Tweedum sighed. "Well, my shoulder hurts like a motherfucker, but I think Rick is hurt worse…"

His voice trailed off. There was something he wasn't saying. "What is it?"

Tweedum shook his head. "He shot out the main computer. We have no control over engines. We have no life support."

He painfully turned to face Sarah, a look of dread on his face. "For all intents and purposes, _Enterprise_ is dead."

* * *

**10:00 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
**_**Serenity**_

Chuck and Kaylee found themselves in Kaylee's quarters. It had taken a couple of hours to get there, but as far as Kaylee was concerned, this was shaping up to be the best night of her life.

Her attention was fully occupied by Chuck Bartowski, who Kaylee had determined was a VERY good kisser. Also, as she was rapidly discovering, he had VERY dexterous hands –

And in the fingers of one of those hands, he had taken hold of the zipper on the back of her dress and was slowly moving it downward. Kaylee made no move to stop him, and when the zipper reached its end, the dress had no support left, and fell to the floor.

"Whoa," Chuck breathed slowly. Kaylee now stood in front of him, clad in nothing but a tiny strapless black bra and an equally tiny thong – along with, oddly enough, his necktie, which she had stolen from him over an hour before.

He shook his head. "I don't remember asking Inara to get those."

"Of course you didn't," Kaylee said with a patient smile. "You only thought of the dress from a man's perspective – she thought of it as any woman would."

"Right," Chuck replied. "But I'm not a woman."

Kaylee laughed. "Clearly," she said, moving back toward him. "My turn."

Agonizingly slowly, she moved her fingers down the front of his shirt, undoing its buttons one by one. When it was completely unbuttoned, Kaylee gently ran her fingers across Chuck's chest. He closed his eyes and smiled, then reopened them as she slowly slid his shirt and jacket off of his arms.

Two minutes later, they were in Kaylee's bed, both as they had entered the world. Chuck found himself on his back, Kaylee lying on top of him.

"I've been waiting for this for a while," Kaylee whispered, smiling at him.

Chuck smiled back. "So have I."

Laughing quietly, Kaylee sat up. Chuck watched, absorbing her every move. She looked so different in her engineering outfit – the black dress and, well, her birthday suit made all the difference in the 'verse.

Kaylee slowly slid backwards, and then onto Chuck. She gasped as he entered her, her eyes falling closed. A tiny moan escaped her mouth as she bit her bottom lip.

This was DEFINITELY worth waiting for.

* * *

Mal Reynolds emerged from the control room – to find his entire crew gathered outside of Kaylee's quarters.

"What the ruttin' hell?!" he exclaimed, causing five guilty faces to turn toward him. "Am I runnin' a ship of perverts here?"

Quickly, they scattered, everybody disappearing, save for Jayne, who remained standing by Kaylee's door for a moment. "JAYNE!" Mal hissed.

"Just puttin' up a sign," Jayne replied, and then furtively headed off down the hall.

Curious, Mal walked to Kaylee's door, and looked at the sign –

_When this Firefly's rockin', don't come a-knockin'!_

* * *

**11:15 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
**_**Enterprise**_

Sarah sat in her seat on the control deck, her head in her hands. Certain memories were starting to return, and it was making her head hurt like hell.

She supposed that her headache might have had something to do with the fact that she was in the middle of space, adrift, after a Fulcrum agent had stabbed John Casey and shot Rick Lorenz. Both of them were stable for the moment, but Casey was going to need surgery, and Lorenz very simply needed a hospital as soon as possible.

"So, what are our options?" she asked, looking from Mike Tweedum to Bryce Larkin and back again.

Tweedum shrugged, and then winced in pain. His wounded shoulder was bandaged and in a sling, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. "We put out a distress call," he said. "Aside from that, we breathe as little as possible – as long as Casey and Rick stay asleep, we've got probably three hours of oxygen remaining."

He sighed. "We're only a few hours out from Persephone. Somebody's bound to pick up our distress call. Even if we do run out of oxygen, we can get in spacesuits, and put the other two on emergency oxygen bottles. That'll last us till maybe six o'clock tomorrow morning."

Sarah frowned. "And then?"

Mike Tweedum looked Sarah directly in the eyes. "And then, I hope you believe in God."

* * *

**11:30 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
**_**Serenity**_

Kaylee lay next to Chuck, a satisfied smile on her face. "No strawberry has ever been that good," she breathed.

"Glad to hear it," Chuck replied, a relieved tone in his voice. "I haven't had much experience lately… there's been a handful of times in the last few years, and that's it."

Kaylee smiled. "You were great," she said quietly. "And I mean it."

* * *

**11:35 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
**_**Enterprise**_

"The distress beacon's going," Tweedum reported. "Do you want to do a live distress call?"

Sarah sighed. "It couldn't hurt," she replied, moving to Rick Lorenz' seat. Trying to ignore the spray of dried blood on the windshield in front of her, she pulled on his headset, and then keyed the transmission button.

"Mayday, mayday," she said. "This is shuttle _Enterprise_. We have lost computers, propulsion, and life support. We are currently adrift, and have two critically wounded crew. We require immediate assistance.

"Please help us."


	15. End of the Road

_**Chuck vs. the Future **_**Redux, Chapter 15 – "End of the Road"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
Bryce Larkin – Matthew Bomer  
Mike Tweedum – Jason Bateman  
Zoe Washburne – Gina Torres  
River Tam – Summer Glau  
Mal Reynolds – Nathan Fillion  
Simon Tam – Sean Maher  
Jayne Cobb – Adam Baldwin  
Inara Serra – Morena Baccarin  
Kaylee Frye – Jewel Staite  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
John Casey – Adam Baldwin  
Rick Lorenz – Michael Biehn

* * *

**1:45 AM, Alliance Mean Time  
February 15****th****, 2519  
**_**Enterprise**_

"Okay," Sarah said quietly. "I think I have an idea."

Tweedum and Bryce both turned toward her. "Anything would be helpful at this point," Captain Tweedum said.

Sarah had retrieved a vial from her duffel bag, which she now held up. "CIA issue sleeping capsules," she said. "Casey and Lorenz are both asleep already. We each take one of these, put on an emergency oxygen mask. If we're all asleep, won't that make the emergency oxygen last a little longer?"

Tweedum sighed. "Maybe an extra hour," he replied. "I'll set an alarm for 7:00 AM, and we can wake up then, get into the spacesuits – but remember, there's only four spacesuits, and the oxygen with them will only last us for another three hours."

Bryce looked from Sarah to Tweedum. "Well, it's better than nothing."

* * *

**3:15 AM, Alliance Mean Time  
**_**Serenity**_

"Morning, River," Zoe Washburne said sleepily, entering the cockpit. "Anything interesting going on?"

"Only the mental energy running through Kaylee's cabin," River replied with a mischievous smile.

Zoe smiled and shook her head. "They certainly had themselves quite a night, didn't they?"

"I'm guessing so," River said, standing from the pilot's chair. "Would you like some coffee?"

"Oh yes," Zoe replied. "That would be most helpful."

River nodded. "I'll be right back."

The younger woman left the cockpit, leaving Zoe alone with the ship – and her husband's dinosaurs. Zoe couldn't help but smile, as she always did, at the sight of the plastic dinosaurs on the console – although, just as always, the dull ache that would never fully leave settled in her chest.

It had been over a year, but Zoe was still a little angry and confused about Wash being taken from her like he was. It just wasn't fair. He was still young, he was healthy – and the gorram Reavers had punched a harpoon right through him. It just wasn't –

An insistent beeping erupted from the console, interrupting Zoe's thoughts. She frowned, noticing the flashing red light.

_Serenity_ was picking up somebody's distress beacon. "What the hell?" Zoe muttered. Flipping a switch, she opened a channel on the same frequency. "Unidentified vessel, this is transport _Serenity_. We are receiving your distress beacon. Do you require assistance?"

There was no answer. "Damn," Zoe whispered. Turning _Serenity_ toward the bearing of the distress signal, she pushed the throttle up to full. She then sent a computer query back to the distress beacon, which replied with what sounded like a recorded message.

"_This is shuttle _Enterprise," Zoe heard. The voice was that of a woman who was maintaining control but was very, very frightened. "_We have lost computers, propulsion, and life support. We are currently adrift, and have two critically wounded crew. We require immediate assistance. Please help us._"

The message fell silent for a moment, and then began repeating itself. Zoe pushed a button to silence the message, and then activated the intercom. "All crew, this is the bridge," she said. "We are heading to intercept a shuttle that is adrift and in distress. Please report to the common room for briefing."

Five minutes later, the entire crew was assembled in the common room, save for Chuck and Kaylee. However, they were not far behind, walking in hand-in-hand, Chuck wearing his dress shirt and slacks, Kaylee back to her usual combination of t-shirt and coveralls.

Despite the gravity of the situation, Jayne started applauding as the two walked in, and the rest of the crew joined in quickly. Chuck grinned and took a small bow, which earned him a smack to the back of his head. Kaylee blushed as red as her hair, but smiled nonetheless.

"Alright, folks, let's settle down," Zoe said. "We are on course to intercept a shuttle whose distress beacon I picked up about fifteen minutes ago. According to the recorded mayday that's being broadcast, they have lost pretty much all their systems, and they have two critically wounded crew members."

Mal rose, taking over. "Now, I don't have to tell you all, this could be a trap – God knows we've had a few of those come our way – but as far as we're concerned, there are folk out there in serious trouble, and we're gonna go take care of them. Questions?"

There were none. "Alright," Mal continued. "Simon, you're gonna have your hands full – Inara, I need you to help him out much as you can. Kaylee and Chuck, it sounds like they may be needin' both your areas of expertise. Jayne, Zoe, and I will make sure that nothin' unfortunate occurs."

"Yeah," Jayne muttered. "And if need be, we can call in Crazy Girl."

River rolled her eyes and sighed – and then, looking at Jayne, flicked a finger.

Jayne's chair fell over backward, causing him to yelp in fright and jump up. "Gorramit, you crazy bi-"

"Jayne, shut the hell up," Mal interrupted tiredly. "You had that comin'."

Jayne growled and cast the evil eye on River, who just looked back and smiled sweetly. Mal just sighed and headed toward the bridge, followed closely by Zoe, Chuck, and Kaylee.

It was nearly an hour before they reached the position of the distress beacon. "Where is it?" Kaylee asked, not seeing anything but space.

"Right below us," Zoe replied. "I'm gonna bring us about so we can get a visual – that way, we'll be lined up to hook up to their hatch."

_Serenity_ slowed nearly to a stop, and Zoe brought her nose around. The ship turned, and gradually the windshield was filled with the view of a white spacecraft –

A white spacecraft which said _Enterprise_ on its port wing and "United States of America" on its starboard wing. Chuck's eyes went wide, and he felt like his heart had stopped beating. "Oh my God," he whispered.

Three sets of eyes turned to him. "Chuck," Mal said, "is this what I think it is?"

Chuck nodded slowly. "Yeah," he replied. "It's them."

He heard what sounded distinctly like a tiny whimper behind him. Chuck turned around to see Kaylee, eyes closed, trying desperately not to cry. Chuck didn't say anything, but rather, just reached out and embraced Kaylee, holding her against him.

* * *

Five space-suited figures headed down the tunnel between _Serenity_ and _Enterprise_. The shuttle was dark, only identification lights on the tail and wings blinking.

With Jayne standing point, his gun aimed at _Enterprise_'s hatchway, Mal slowly turned the handle on the exterior of the hatch. With a hiss, it opened, revealing the dark interior of the crippled space shuttle.

Zoe stepped into the shuttle, an instrument in hand. "Oxygen's below normal, but the air's breathable," she reported. "And with _Enterprise_ open to _Serenity_, the oxygen in here should stabilize fairly quickly."

She pulled off her helmet, and the other four followed suit. "Alright," Mal said. "There's nobody up here, so I'm guessin' everybody's below. Let's go take a look."

Jayne moved to the ladder down to the deck below. Shining a flashlight down the hole, he reported, "There's five down here, and they're all either dead or sleepin'. Dressed up like purplebellies, too."

Mal frowned. "Alliance uniforms?" he asked. "That's… odd."

Chuck moved over to the hole, and looked down. He could only see one face –

"Bryce," he breathed. "Yeah, it's them."

Trying desperately not to look over at Kaylee, Chuck grabbed hold of the ladder and climbed down to the deck below, followed closely by Mal, and then Jayne. He looked to his left –

To see John Casey, a bloody bandage covering his abdomen. "God," Chuck breathed. "He needs medical attention," he said, pointing at Casey, "and it looks like he does too." He turned and pointed at an unfamiliar man whose nametag said LORENZ.

Chuck almost didn't want to turn and look behind him. He knew who he was going to see back there –

But he had to turn around. There was Bryce Larkin. There was another man he didn't know – his nametag said TWEEDUM.

And then, there was Sarah Walker.

As Chuck moved toward her bunk, the lights flickered on. Kaylee must've restored power up above.

Chuck knelt down next to Sarah's sleeping figure, and gently slipped off the oxygen mask that she was wearing. Between having the oxygen mask removed and the lights coming on, Sarah started to stir.

A moment later, her eyes flickered open – and then went wide. "Oh my God," she whispered, an expression of pure joy washing over her face. "Chuck… is that really you?"

Chuck smiled and nodded. "It really is me," he said.

Meanwhile three of the other four crew had begun to wake up. Bryce Larkin sat up, and exclaimed, "CHUCK?!"

That got John Casey's attention. He rolled his head to the right, and said, "Bartowski? Where?!"

"I hate to interrupt," Mike Tweedum said, a little irritably, "but you're gonna have to have happy reunion time later. If Mr. Bartowski is onboard this shuttle, that means we're docked with the transport _Serenity_, which means we need to get Majors Casey and Lorenz over THERE."

"I agree fully," Mal Reynolds said, mildly impressed with the Air Force captain. "Let's get these folks moved."

Jayne Cobb moved over to Casey's bunk – and his face went white. "My super-great-grandpappy!" he whispered.

Casey, who was still somewhat groggy, peered at Jayne and said, "You look like me… but I'm not that ugly. You must be Jayne."

Jayne's eyes went wide. "How the ruttin' hell did you know that?"

"Ever heard of Higgins' Moon?" Bryce asked.

Jayne turned to look at Bryce, and made a face. "Damn," he spat. "Here I thought they'd got some sense."

"Apparently not," Mal interrupted, beginning to sound a little testy. "Now, can we move the crippled and the nearly dead, or are we all just gonna hang round this shuttle and shoot the breeze?"

"Right," Chuck replied. He moved over to help Jayne with Casey. The two got the NSA agent standing, and moved him toward the ladder – "This was a hell of a lot easier with no gravity," Casey groaned.

Once Casey reached the deck above, Zoe helped him out of the shuttle, and down the tunnel into _Serenity_. "Careful with Major Lorenz," Captain Tweedum told them. "He's got a bad head injury."

"Yes, he most certainly does," Mal said. "KAYLEE!"

"Yeah?" Kaylee's disembodied voice floated down from the deck above.

"GO TELL SIMON HE'S GOT A NASTY ONE COMIN' IN!"

Mal quickly climbed up to the top of the ladder, followed by Bryce Larkin. Gently, Jayne and Chuck lifted Major Lorenz up the ladder into Mal and Bryce's hands. The two men took hold of Lorenz, and disappeared.

Jayne climbed up the ladder behind them, leaving Chuck on the lower deck with Sarah and Tweedum. Tweedum looked from Chuck, to Sarah, and back again. "I imagine the two of you have a few things to talk about," he said, and followed Jayne up the ladder.

Chuck and Sarah stood on the deck, staring at each other. Then Chuck's face took on a concerned look. "What – what the hell happened to your head?!"

"Yeah," Sarah said with a grimace. "Skull fracture. I'm missing some memories, too."

Chuck raised an eyebrow. "Clearly not of me," he said.

A smile slowly spread across Sarah's face. "Never," she whispered. She moved toward Chuck, and Chuck could tell, just by reading her face, what her intentions were.

"Uh, Sarah," he said, holding up a hand to stop her.

Sarah halted, a confused look on her face. Chuck sighed. "There's somebody you need to meet."

* * *

Sarah Walker went into denial the moment she heard Chuck tell her that there was somebody she needed to meet. She tried to tell herself that maybe Chuck just wanted her to meet somebody who had become a friend of his while he was here.

Deep down, though, she knew that Chuck had found somebody. She didn't want to admit it, but she knew –

Because the memories were returning. The memories of Lou. The memories of Jill. The way he had acted around Sarah when they were in his life – it was the same way he had just acted.

Suppressing the urge to lash out at Chuck, Sarah followed him up the ladder, and out of the shuttle. Her eyes widened a little as she entered _Serenity_, though it was not nearly as impressive as MKV _Columbia_ had been.

She smiled at seeing the Buy More Herder parked in the cargo bay – but her smile just as quickly faded as she looked up and saw HER.

The woman with red hair, the one from her nightmares. SHE was standing on the other side of the cargo bay, looking at Sarah and Chuck. Chuck looked from Sarah to Kaylee uncertainly, and then headed across the bay.

"Kaylee," Chuck said quietly, "this is my friend, Sarah Walker. Sarah…"

He paused, and took a breath. "This is Kaylee Frye… my girlfriend."

Sarah's eyes went wide – and then everything went black.

Chuck lunged forward to catch Sarah as she collapsed. He put a hand behind her head to support it as he lowered her to the deck – and it came away bloody.

"Oh, God," Chuck breathed, a look of horror on his face. "SIMON!"

A moment later, Inara came running into the cargo bay. "Simon's trying to get Major Lorenz' bleeding under control," she said.

Chuck looked up at Inara helplessly. "But – her head's bleeding – she told me she had a skull fracture –"

Inara looked from Chuck, to Sarah, to Kaylee, and back to Chuck. "Stay here," she instructed Chuck.

Inara turned and practically ran out of the cargo bay. A moment later, she entered the control room, panting. "Mal!" she gasped.

Mal turned around. "Inara? What's going on?"

She shook her head. "You have to call the nearest Alliance ship, right now," she replied. "There's just too many wounded who came off of _Enterprise_ for Simon to handle."

Mal looked at Inara as if she had just said that space was actually bright pink. "I'm sorry," he said. "I think you just said you want me to call an Alliance ship?!"

"MAL!" Inara snapped. "You HAVE to! The Alliance doesn't have anything against you anymore – just DO IT!"

There was silence in the cockpit for a moment. Finally, Mal turned to River. "What's the closest Alliance cruiser?"

River turned to her computer, and typed quickly, looking at the monitor. "MKV _Columbia_," she said, without looking up. "About three hours, at top speed – but we'd have to disconnect from _Ente-_"

"What if they came to us?" Mal asked.

River looked confused. "Why would they do that?"

Mal didn't answer. Instead, he keyed the microphone on the navigator's side. "Transport _Serenity_ to MKV _Columbia_," he said. "Come in, _Columbia_."

A moment later, there was a response from the distant Alliance cruiser. "Serenity_, this is _Columbia_. What is your situation?_"

"_Columbia_, we have three critically injured individuals onboard – a military pilot and two agents of the National Security Agency. We do not have the facilities onboard to treat these personnel. We are requesting your immediate assistance."

There was silence for a moment, and then another voice came on the line. "_This is Captain Omar Yagosian of MKV _Columbia," the voice said. "_To whom am I speaking?_"

Mal raised an eyebrow. "This is Captain Malcolm Reynolds of the transport _Serenity_," he replied.

"_Captain Reynolds, did these personnel come off of a shuttle named _Enterprise_?_"

"As a matter of fact, they did," Mal said, looking at Inara in surprise.

"_Understood. We are getting underway right now; expect to rendezvous with us in approximately eighty minutes._"

The channel went dead. Mal turned around to face Inara, a look of disbelief on his face. "I'll be damned."

* * *

**4:30 A.M., Alliance Mean Time  
**_**Serenity**_

Chuck lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, an empty feeling of dread and guilt coursing through his veins. He felt like he was responsible for Sarah's collapse – and the aggravation of her injury.

Kaylee, lying next to him, saw the haunted look on his face. "What are you thinking?" she whispered.

Chuck shook his head. "She's always been such a great friend," he said quietly. "She came through time and space to find me, she suffers a horrible injury, and then, when she finally finds me, it's like she lost me all over again."

He sighed. "I don't deserve her."

"Don't you ever say that, Chuck Bartowski," Kaylee reprimanded him. "You deserve every person you love, every person you consider a friend." She took his hand in hers. "You've made me feel like nobody else has ever made me feel before – you deserve everything you have."

Chuck turned on his side to face Kaylee. "Thank you," he whispered.

Kaylee wrapped her arms around Chuck's neck and hugged him tight. "Let's get some sleep."


	16. No Greater Love

_**Chuck vs. the Future**_** Redux, Chapter 16 – "No Greater Love"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
Frank Mauser – Michael Rooker  
Dr. Corey Woodcomb – Ryan McPartlin  
Mal Reynolds – Nathan Fillion  
Captain Omar Yagosian – Olek Krupa  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
Kaylee Frye – Jewel Staite  
Bryce Larkin – Matthew Bomer  
The General – Bonita Fredericy

* * *

_**7:30 PM, Pacific Standard Time  
December 24**__**th**__**, 2008  
Burbank, California**_

_Sarah was having difficulty breathing. She was pretty certain that Lt. Mauser's death grip on her throat a moment before had bruised something._

_She looked down the barrel of her gun at him, hands shaking. Mauser laughed. "You may have beaten me, Agent Walker, but Fulcrum's won," he said. "I know Chuck Bartowski's the Intersect."_

"_That secret is safe," Sarah shot back, a note of victory in her voice. "And you're going straight to a CIA detention facility, never to be seen or heard from again."_

"_Well, you go right ahead, Agent Walker," Mauser replied with a smirk. "Arrest me. But say good-bye to Chuck." He spread his arms wide, almost like a cruciform. "But say good-bye to Chuck. You see, I'm not like those other Fulcrum agents – they'll do whatever it takes to find me."_

_The words burned into Sarah's brain like a brand. Whatever it takes. She tightened her grip on the stock of her gun, commanding her hands to be still. "And when they do," Mauser continued, "every Fulcrum agent we have is gonna know Chuck's the Intersect."_

_Sarah felt her eyes stinging. No tears, not now, not here! she mentally chastised herself. She bit her lip._

"_It's gonna be the end of his pathetic existence," Mauser finished. "So take me in, Agent Walker. I'm ready to go."_

_He brought his hands together, as if preparing for them to be cuffed. Sarah's gun dropped, a feeling of defeat filling her heart –_

_But no. There was no way. This scumbag was not going to be responsible for Chuck's life to become a truncated hell. Not HER Chuck. NO WAY._

_Sarah's right arm swung back upwards, and with deadly precision, she pulled the trigger. Her silenced Colt 1911 spat once, the bullet tunneling straight into Lieutenant Frank Mauser's heart._

_Smoke curled from the end of the silencer as the gun fell. She looked around, to make sure that she was clear –_

_And there was Chuck, staring at her in horrified disbelief from the end of the aisle. "Chuck?" she asked._

_He just shook his head, and then turned and ran. "Chuck!" she yelled. "Wait! Chuck!"_

_But he had disappeared. "CHUCK!"_

* * *

**11:30 AM, Alliance Mean Time  
February 16****th****, 2519  
MKV **_**Columbia**_

"CHUCK!"

Sarah Walker sat bolt upright in her bed. An IV popped out and fell to the floor. Several electrodes went flying, and multiple monitors started screaming for attention.

And every single bad memory of the last ten years came flooding back into Sarah's head. The whole two years with Bryce. The origination of the name "Sarah Walker". The shooting of Frank Mauser on Christmas Eve.

Chuck's disappearance on Christmas Day.

Her head felt like it was going to split in two. She brought her hands to her face and cried out in pain.

The pounding pain – the splitting pain – it hurt – it hurt so bad –

And then, all of a sudden, it didn't anymore. She felt the gentle pinch of a hypodermic needle being removed from her arm. Slowly, she dropped her hands from her face, as she relaxed.

"Thank you," she said softly to the doctor. Sarah turned to look at him –

Her jaw dropped. "CAPTAIN AWESOME?!"

The doctor looked at her. "Beg pardon?"

Sarah looked at him askance. "I'm sorry," she said. "You just look a lot like somebody –"

That's when she noticed the nametag sewn onto his lab coat. _Woodcomb_, it proclaimed. "No way."

"I'm Corey Woodcomb, chief medical officer of MKV _Columbia_," he said, holding out his hand. "Have we met before?"

Sarah smiled slightly. "Not exactly."

Dr. Woodcomb frowned. "I see," he replied. "Um, I need to go check on your shipmate, Major Lorenz – he's still not out of the woods. I'll be back in a few minutes."

Sarah just nodded, and watched in amazement as Dr. Woodcomb walked out the door. "Pretty freaky, huh?" she heard from behind her.

She whirled around – to see John Casey sitting on the next bed over. "How's the head, Walker?" he asked.

"It hurts like a bitch," she replied. "On the bright side, though, my amnesia seems to have taken a hike."

Casey snorted. "Sure that's the bright side?"

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Okay, so if it were REALLY the bright side, I'd be married to Chuck, and we'd have three kids and live in Studio City –"

Her eyes went wide and her hands flew to her mouth. "Did I just say that out loud?"

An amused smile appeared on Casey's face. "Very much so," he replied. "But I'll pretend I didn't hear it." He gestured toward the open door. "See you noticed how much our doc looks like Devon Woodcomb?"

Sarah shook her head. "It's just uncanny."

"Well, I'm guessin' the name ain't a coincidence," Casey replied. "Probably thirteen or fourteen generations between 'em, but I'd say you're looking at a bona fide descendant of Devon Woodcomb and Ellie Bartowski right there."

"Which means…"

"Which means he's related to Chuck, God help us," Casey drawled. "'Course, he seems to have turned out better than my Neanderthal descendant."

Sarah raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Yeah," Casey grunted. "Jayne Cobb. Muscleman onboard _Serenity_. Apparently he did a little research and found out that he's one of my DIRECT descendants." Casey sighed. "He's got excellent taste in guns, but he's… well… stupid."

* * *

It just felt downright unnatural for Mal Reynolds to be standing on the bridge of an Alliance cruiser. There was a time when he figured the only way that would happen would be as a prisoner of war.

Yet here he stood, by the invitation of Captain Omar Yagosian. Despite Mal's past as a Browncoat, Yagosian nonetheless extended to him the same courtesy that he claimed he would extend to any other ship's captain.

And though he would never admit it, Mal was utterly fascinated by _Columbia_'s bridge. He felt like a kid in a toy store, looking around at the bridge, but being very careful not to touch anything.

A beeping sound caught his attention, and he turned toward the tactical station, where a young man who couldn't have been any older than River stood. "Uh, Captain?" he said. "There's a ship coming into range."

Captain Yagosian looked at his tactical officer and frowned. "Identify."

The young man worked for a second, and then looked back up at Yagosian, a look that lay somewhere between reverence and dread on his face. "Captain, it's USS _Challenger_."

Yagosian's eyes went wide, and his face drained of all color. "Oh, God," he muttered.

Mal was confused. "What's USS _Challenger_?" he asked. "And why's it make you look like you just bet your life on a lame pony?"

"USS _Challenger_," Yagosian said quietly. "_Challenger_ is a high-speed corvette, built before the formation of the Alliance. It's nearly a century old, but it's still one of the fastest and deadliest ships in the fleet. It's also the personal flagship of the General."

"The General?!" Mal replied incredulously. "I thought the General was an old wives' tale!"

Yagosian shook his head slowly. "Far from it, Captain," he said. "I have personally spoken with the General within the last month. And given that it was with regard to the injured individuals in my infirmary, I'm guessing that's why she's here."

* * *

_Enterprise_ had been pulled into _Columbia_'s cargo bay. The Alliance cruiser's chief engineer had examined her closely, and determined that _Columbia_ would have to put into a shipyard for proper repairs to be performed on _Enterprise_. So, Captain Yagosian had set course for Persephone and the Utopia Planitia Shipyards – and had, shortly thereafter, delivered a scathing communiqué from the shipyard commander to _Enterprise_'s crew about taking better care of their ship.

Chuck, Kaylee and Bryce were inside _Enterprise_'s cabin, working on the computer systems. Chuck didn't trust a shipyard to perform the repairs correctly, and as such had taken it upon himself to make sure that they were running properly. He had almost given up in despair when he realized just how old _Enterprise_'s computers were, but he nonetheless pressed on.

He was getting ready to start putting things back together when an Alliance NCO stuck his head into the shuttle. "Uh, Agent Larkin, Mr. Bartowski?" he asked.

Chuck slid out from under the console as Bryce said, "Yeah, that's us."

"Captain needs to see you both in the conference room."

* * *

Sarah and Casey had both been taken from the infirmary in wheelchairs, and were now on an elevator to _Columbia_'s bridge level. Neither of them were quite sure what was going on – they had just been told that the Captain needed to see them in the conference room.

As they reached the doors to the conference room, they encountered Chuck and Bryce coming from the other direction. "Larkin, Bartowski," Casey said. "Fancy meeting you here?"

"Yeah," Bryce replied. "Any idea what this is about?"

Casey shook his head. "None whatsoever."

Chuck and Sarah just looked at each other, a look of guilt plastered on Chuck's face. Finally, he worked up the nerve to ask, "How are you?"

Sarah smiled weakly. "My head hurts," she replied. "But I remember everything now."

Chuck nodded. "Good," he replied. "We should, uh, talk later."

"Yeah," Sarah said. "That's a good –"

"Oh, for God's sake," Casey groaned. "Can the two of you discuss your crap later?"

He opened the door to the conference room, and the four of them entered. The chair at the head of the conference table turned around –

To reveal what appeared to be an android of some sort. It had a somewhat female appearance, and oddly enough, had long red hair.

Its voice, however – its voice was unmistakable. "Hello, everybody," said the General. "Major Casey, Agent Walker, Agent Larkin, Mr. Bartowski – I've been waiting for this for many, many years."

The four were dumbfounded. Finally, Chuck quietly said, "General… Beckman?"

"It's been centuries since anybody called me by that name," the General replied. "But it's good to hear it again."

Casey stared at the General, shock on his face. "What – how?!"

The General shrugged – or, at least, came as close to shrugging as an android could. "Advanced technology, access to it all through the NSA – one day, when I was about 90, I decided I wanted to live forever." A flicker of a smile crossed her face. "I'm at five hundred sixty-one and counting."

Sarah laughed. "You know, when Casey said he thought we had a guardian angel, I didn't realize that you would actually be here," she said. "This is pretty much unbelievable."

"I know," the General replied. "But… that's not why I came all the way out here to talk to all of you."

She looked Chuck in the eyes. "Mr. Bartowski, I need to know your intentions."

Chuck frowned. "What do you mean, ma'am?"

"I mean, do you plan to return to the twenty-first century with these agents?"

Chuck's breath caught in his throat. "Well… uh… I don't know."

Three heads turned toward Chuck, three sets of eyes fixing him with stares ranging from anger to heartbreak. "What do you mean, you don't know, Bartowski?" Casey growled.

"Major, leave it alone," the General said. She turned back to Chuck. "You do know that I still have the authority to order you to go back, correct?"

Chuck sighed. "I figured as much," he replied. "But, I'm just not sure if going back is the right thing for me."

The General nodded. "I understand," she said. Then, turning to Sarah, Bryce, and Casey, she said, "May I speak with Mr. Bartowski alone for a moment, please?"

The three agents all gave the General odd looks, but acquiesced. Once the door closed, the General walked over by where Chuck stood.

"Mr. Bartowski," she said quietly, "why do you want to stay here?"

Chuck sighed. "To be honest, General Beckman, I think I've fallen in love. And she's in love with me, too."

"Of course," the General replied. "And when you say 'she', you are referring to _Serenity_'s engineer, Kaywinnit Lee Frye, correct?"

"Yeah," Chuck said with a nod. "That's her."

The General was quiet for a moment. "Mr. Bartowski," she finally said, "I'm not going to tell you that you have to go back. That's your decision to make. However…"

She crossed her arms, and the tone of her voice made Chuck feel like he was standing in front of General Beckman, long before she had become an android. "You must realize how many people there are in the twenty-first century, counting on you. Your sister. Your future brother-in-law. Morgan Grimes – how long do you think he'll last without your guidance?"

The General shook her head. "To say nothing of Agent Walker, and even Major Casey."

She looked back up at Chuck. "Before you decide to stay here, I want you to make very, VERY sure that you believe that that's the right thing to do."

Chuck sighed. "Yes, ma'am."

"You're dismissed," the General told him. "Please ask the three in the hall to come back in."

Chuck turned and left the conference room without a word. "General Beckman wants to see you guys," he muttered as he passed Casey, Bryce, and Sarah.

The three agents re-entered the conference room. "I have decided to give Mr. Bartowski the option of staying here," the General said without preamble.

"WHAT?!" Casey snapped. "After all the shit we've gone through to find him?"

"Major Casey, if you were in his situation, I would give you the same choice," the General said calmly.

"You wouldn't have to give me a choice," Casey grated. "You KNOW I would choose duty over self –"

"Which I would expect from a career military man," the General interrupted him. "And as you seem to have become so fond of reminding him, that is exactly what Mr. Bartowski IS NOT."

Casey was struck by the General's words. He tried to form a reply, but nothing came, and he ended up staring at the General, a curious look on his face.

"General," Sarah said tiredly, "you know what he decides, don't you?"

"I do," the General replied with a nod.

"Can you tell us?"

The General shook her head. "I cannot," she said. "For you to know the immediate future events of your timeline could be potentially disastrous."

She headed toward the door. "I am sure that Mr. Bartowski will choose to do whatever he feels is right."

* * *

**6:30 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
**_**Serenity**_

Sarah had asked to be moved to _Serenity_'s infirmary – despite the fact that it was a fraction of the size of _Columbia_'s sick bay, she didn't feel nearly as claustrophobic onboard the little _Firefly_ as she did on the massive cruiser.

She sat on her bed, staring aimlessly at her laptop, which Bryce had retrieved from _Enterprise_ for her. Speaking of Bryce –

"Are you doing okay?" he asked, as he walked in the door.

Sarah shrugged. "I'm fine."

Bryce shook his head and smiled. "No, you're not," he replied. "I know you too well for you to pull that on me."

Sarah laughed softly. "Hey, at least I know that you know now, right?"

"Yeah," Bryce said. "I guess having your memory come back is a good thing."

"I almost wish it hadn't," Sarah said with a sigh. "Then maybe I could forget if Chuck decides not to go back."

Bryce looked Sarah in the eyes. "Hey," he said. "I'm sure Chuck will do the right thing. You just have to understand, the situation he's in – if he stays here, he has to forsake everything and everybody he holds dear, but if he leaves, he leaves behind somebody who he has apparently fallen in love with –"

"And that just isn't fair," Sarah interrupted, trying to fight back the tears that she felt coming. "After everything I did to find him, I get here, and he's fallen in love with… with some prairie harpy?!"

"Okay, that's not fair," Bryce objected. "Kaylee's a very nice girl. But as far as you go – you consider yourself Chuck's friend, right?"

"Of course," Sarah said. "Always."

"Alright," Bryce replied. "Then let me leave you with two things – number one, Chuck needs to make this decision for himself."

Sarah just nodded.

"And number two…" Bryce stopped for a moment. "There is no greater love than the one who would lay down his life for his friends."

Sarah narrowed her eyes. "That sounds familiar," she said quietly. "Who said that?"

Bryce smiled, and turned toward the door. "That would be from the Bible."

Sarah stared after Bryce, dumbfounded, as he walked out the door. She was still staring at the door, five minutes later, when Chuck Bartowski walked into the infirmary.

"Hey," he said.

"Since when does Bryce Larkin read the Bible?" Sarah asked by way of reply.

Chuck looked taken aback. "I – uh, I have no idea," he said. "I always thought Bryce was an agnostic."

He shook his head. "Listen, though, there's something else I need to talk to you about."

Sarah sighed. This was it. Chuck was going to tell her that he couldn't come back, that he had fallen in lo-

"I saw you shoot Lieutenant Mauser," Chuck blurted.

Sarah's head snapped around. Her face took on a look of disbelief. "You did?!"

Chuck nodded. "I did. And then you lied to me about it."

Sarah nodded as well, and looked away from Chuck. "I did."

Chuck was silent for a moment. "The thing is," he finally said, "you saved my life. You didn't shoot him to keep the Intersect safe."

He reached out and grabbed Sarah's hand. Her head came up, and she looked at him. "You did it to save ME."

Sarah couldn't say anything – she just nodded. "Thank you," Chuck said, quietly but sincerely. "I owe you everything."

"So…" Sarah whispered, "does that mean…"

"I don't know yet," Chuck replied with a sigh. "But I promise you, I'll figure it out soon."


	17. Untraveled Worlds

_**Chuck vs. the Future **_**Redux, Chapter 17 – "Untraveled Worlds"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
John Casey – Adam Baldwin  
Rick Lorenz – Michael Biehn  
Jayne Cobb – Adam Baldwin  
Mal Reynolds – Nathan Fillion  
Bryce Larkin – Matthew Bomer  
Waitress – Blake Lively  
Zoe Washburne – Gina Torres  
Kaylee Frye – Jewel Staite  
Mike Tweedum – Jason Bateman  
Simon Tam – Sean Maher  
River Tam – Summer Glau  
Inara Serra – Morena Baccarin

* * *

**1:30 AM, Alliance Mean Time  
March 18****th****, 2519**

Close to three months had passed since Chuck Bartowski's arrival in the 26th century.

Repairs on _Enterprise_ had finally been finished. It was scheduled to depart to head back toward the 21st century on the evening of the 18th.

Sarah Walker's injuries were almost completely healed; however, the Alliance doctors at Utopia Planitia were still somewhat concerned about her head injury.

John Casey had also almost completely healed. The only warning the doctors had for him was not to get into any fights. "Where's the fun in that?" he had replied.

Rick Lorenz had been in a coma for three weeks. He had regained consciousness on March 5th, but had been unable to speak since then.

And so, the night before _Enterprise_ was scheduled to leave, Mal, Chuck, and Bryce had gone out to celebrate St. Patrick's Day…

* * *

**O'Fearghail's Irish Pub, Eavesdown, Persephone**

"_JAYNE!_"

Chuck Bartowski winced. "What was that?"

Mal Reynolds glared toward the stage. "That… was my intrepid, uh… crewmember… Jayne Cobb, firing up his own anthem."

"_THE MAN THEY CALL JAYNE!_"

"Nuh-uh," Bryce Larkin objected, shaking his head. "That's, uh, that's Casey singin'. Jayne's just playin' the guitar."

"_He robbed from the rich, and he gave to the poor…_"

"I am not drunk enough for this," Mal grumbled. He waved toward their waitress.

"_Stood up to the man, and he gave him what for…_"

"What'll it be?" the waitress asked in a bored voice.

"Three of whatever your strongest stuff is," Mal replied.

The waitress sighed and shook her head. "She's probably had to deal with, um, with a few, a few drunk jerk-offs in her time," Chuck muttered.

"_Our love for him now ain't hard to explain…_"

Bryce laughed. "Like us?"

"Nah," Mal replied. "We're just drunk. Those two –" he jerked a thumb toward the karaoke stage "- they're the jerk-offs."

Rumor had it that Jayne and Casey had gotten absolutely ripped onboard _Serenity_, had gone out looking for trouble, and had ended up getting kicked out of three Eavesdown strip clubs. Chuck couldn't believe it, but the wristbands on Casey's arm spoke otherwise.

"_The hero of Canton, the man they call… JAYNE!_"

"Oh, thank God, it's over," Mal muttered.

The waitress returned with the drinks for the three men. "That's real Irish whiskey," she informed them. "You boys be careful, now."

Mal raised an eyebrow as she sashayed away. "Be careful?" he asked, incredulous. "I'm a space-goin' man. But… still. One… two… three…"

Mal, Chuck, and Bryce slammed back their shots of whiskey. Mal's eyes went wide, Bryce blew out his breath and dropped his glass, and Chuck started coughing. "Whoo!" Mal exclaimed.

A moment later, when Chuck had recovered, he looked at the other two men. "You know what?" he asked, holding a finger up in the air. "This… is bullshit!"

Mal looked at him thoughtfully. "Well, it's all, uh, bullshit, Chuck… you're gonna have to be a little more specific."

"My life!" Chuck declared, a drunken tone to his voice. "It is massive amounts of BULLSHIT!"

"REALLY," Bryce shot back. "Do tell."

"Well, a good big hunk of it's your fault, bucko!" Chuck growled, giving Bryce the gimlet eye. "You get me kicked out of Stanford, supposedly for my own good, then you send me the Intersect, and then I meet Sarah, and fall in love with her, and then end up here, and fall in love with Kaylee – and look who's sittin' here to take me back home!"

Bryce narrowed his eyes. "What, not blamin' me for Jill anymore?"

Chuck snorted. "She told me nothing happened."

"Uh-huh," Bryce replied. "Is that what she's sayin' now."

"What?!" Chuck exclaimed. "She lied?!"

"Of course she lied," Bryce said with a laugh. "She's Fulcrum, for God's sake!"

Chuck growled. "Bitch."

"Yeah, pretty much," Bryce agreed. "But this – this is not my fault!"

"Yeah, uh, I agree with Bryce," Mal slurred. "Sounds like this is that Fulcrum group's fault, huh?"

And at that moment, a guitar track started playing over the karaoke system. "Oh, God," Chuck groaned, his head falling to the table.

"_I'm just a regular Joe, with a regular job… I'm your average white suburbanite slob!_"

"Oh my God," Bryce said, trying not to laugh. "Casey found Denis Leary karaoke in the twenty-sixth century."

"Oh, yeah, I love this song!" Mal interjected. "This was, uh, like, pretty much the unofficial anthem of the whole Independent movement!"

"_I like football and porno and books about war, I got an average house with a nice hardwood floor._"

Chuck looked at Mal curiously. "Your anthem was that you were a bunch of assholes?"

"Hey, far as the Alliance was concerned, that's what we were," Mal said proudly. "So we tried to be the biggest assholes we could be!"

"_My wife and my job, my kids and my car, my feet on my table, and a Cuban cigar!_"

That's when there was a squeal of tires outside the bar, the distinctive sound of a car coming to a stop. "Uh-oh," Mal muttered. "Here comes trouble."

Chuck and Bryce both looked toward the door – to see Zoe Washburne come storming into the pub, followed closely by Sarah Walker. Chuck blanched. "This does not look good."

"_But sometimes that just ain't enough to keep a man like me interested, oh no, no way, uh-uh!_"

"Christ," Zoe grumbled angrily. "All three of you are trashed, aren't you?"

"Indeed we are!" Mal proclaimed proudly. He pointed toward Jayne and Casey. "Them too!"

"_No, I've gotta go out and have fun at someone else's expense, oh yeah, yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah!_"

Bryce narrowed his eyes and looked at Sarah. "Were you… driving my car again?" he asked, very seriously, and very drunkenly.

"No," Sarah shot back, "SHE was." She pointed to Zoe, who did not look to be in the mood for arguing. She turned to Mal and Chuck. "I need to talk to the two of you."

"Absolutely!" Chuck said with a heavily liquored grin.

"_I'm an asshole, he's an asshole, what an asshole! I'm an asshole, he's the world's biggest asshole!_"

"Alright, you know what, I'm not dealing with this," Sarah growled. She turned around, took two pitchers of ice water out of the passing waitress's hands, and turned back to Mal and Chuck. Without any warning, she upended the pitchers over the two men's heads.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Chuck exclaimed, as Mal simultaneously added, "SON OF A BITCH!"

The two men leapt to their feet, the ice water chasing some of the alcoholic cobwebs from their heads. "Alright, listen, and listen good," Zoe snapped. "Kaylee's missing."

Chuck's face went white. "What?!"

"Yeah," Zoe said with a sigh. "She took your car, Chuck, and disappeared. It's been about five hours – she said she was going to find you guys, but we haven't heard from her or seen her since."

Turning toward the stage, Chuck started running toward it – only to almost immediately trip over a chair. Wincing as he landed on his wrist, he nonetheless stood back up and continued toward the stage.

"What the hell you want, Bartowski?" Casey growled as Chuck reached the stage.

"I need your Blackberry!" Chuck shouted over the music.

Casey narrowed his eyes. "What for?"

"I need to track the Herder!"

"Hmmmph," Casey grunted. Nonetheless, he reached in his pocket and tossed his Blackberry to Chuck. Chuck caught it, and ran back toward Sarah and Zoe.

He turned the Blackberry on and started up the tracking app. Selecting "Herder," he waited a moment – and then a bright red locator showed up on the screen. "Alright, let's go!" Chuck said, running toward the door.

"GET IN THE BACK!" Sarah roared as Chuck made a beeline for the Trans Am. "Driver and navigator BOTH need to be sober, buster!"

Reluctantly, Chuck handed the Blackberry to Zoe, and got in the back seat of the Trans Am. The Trans Am took off from the curb like a rocket.

Ten minutes later, they found the Herder – parked outside of Earth-That-Was Antiques. "There it is!" Chuck exclaimed.

Zoe brought the Trans Am to a halt at the curb. Sarah got out and headed for the front door of the store. Chuck jumped out and ran over to the Herder.

"Nobody in here," he said.

"CHUCK!" He turned toward Sarah. "This lock's been picked," she said.

Chuck jogged over to the front door, where Sarah was busy picking the lock herself. A moment later, the door opened. "I'll take care of this," Chuck to Zoe and Sarah.

Zoe nodded, and Chuck slipped into the store. He could hear the faint sound of music from the back of the store –

"Eleanor Rigby." _Jesus_, Chuck thought. _Could Kaylee have picked a more depressing Beatles song?_

He followed the sound of music to the "living room" section of the store. There was Kaylee, curled up and asleep on an old La-Z-Boy. Next to her, an ancient iPod was playing the Beatles on an equally ancient iHome.

Chuck gently sat down on the old recliner. He looked at Kaylee for a moment, taking her in. She looked so sweet, so innocent, asleep like she was. And he was feeling more and more like he was going to have to break her heart.

With a sigh, Chuck reached out and softly shook Kaylee's shoulder. "Kaylee," he said quietly.

She sighed, rolled over onto her back, and slowly opened her eyes. "Hi," she whispered with a small smile.

"Kaylee," Chuck said, feeling despondent. "Why… why'd you run away?"

Her smile disappeared. "I don't – I don't know," she replied, her voice breaking as her face crumpled. Tears began to run down her face.

Gently, Chuck pulled Kaylee up to a sitting position, and wrapped his arms around her. It was all he could do to not break down as he felt sobs wrack Kaylee's body.

After a few minutes, her sobs subsided. "I'm sorry," she sniffled. "It's just that, I know you can't stay here, Chuck."

Chuck's eyes closed, and he took a breath. "Kaylee –"

"No, Chuck," she said quietly. "I know you have to go, and I know that you should, but every time I think about it, I feel like I die a little."

Chuck felt like an icy hand had taken hold of his stomach and started twisting. He couldn't do this anymore. He couldn't stand how much he was hurting Kaylee. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't goddamn fair.

"Come on," he whispered. "We need to get going."

* * *

**12:00 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
**_**Serenity**_

Chuck awoke to the distinct sound of somebody vomiting. He winced – it was a sound he had heard many times before, from his roommates at Stanford, from Ellie, from Devon, even from Sarah once or twice.

Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, he made his way to the bathroom as quickly as he could. He walked in just as Kaylee flushed the toilet. She was sitting on the floor, her hair a mess, looking absolutely miserable.

"Hey," Chuck said, sitting down next to her. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she replied, running a hand through her hair. "I don't know what it is, though. I think I'm sick or something – this is the third morning in a row that's happened."

Chuck grinned. "I think there's a good chance that this morning's might have been brought to you by our friends wine and beer."

Kaylee shook her head. "I don't think so," she replied. "I think it's probably just something I ate."

"Always possible," Chuck said.

He stood up and walked back out into Kaylee's quarters so that she could get cleaned up. As he heard the sound of the shower come on, he figured he should probably do likewise.

Fifteen minutes later, he was showered, dried, and dressed, when there was a knock on the door of his quarters. He opened it, and there was Kaylee, similarly cleaned up and dressed.

"We meet again," Chuck said with a smile.

Kaylee nodded and tried to smile. "Chuck, we need to talk."

"Yeah, that we do," Chuck sighed. "Come on in."

* * *

**5:30 PM, Alliance Mean Time**

"What the hell do you mean, Bartowski's not onboard?!" Casey exploded. "Where the hell is he?"

"According to your Blackberry, he's somewhere in the city," Sarah replied patiently. "I'm sure he'll be fine."

"Why is he not HERE, though?!" Casey demanded. "He's supposed to be HERE!"

"Excuse me, if I may?" Mal said testily. He rubbed his eyes, trying to alleviate the throbbing headache he still had from the night before. "Whether or not Chuck is goin' back with y'all, I very much doubt he'd just blow you off. Do you think for one second that he'd miss the chance to say good-bye?"

Sarah looked at Casey. "No," the NSA agent finally admitted.

"Alright then," Mal said. "So, we'll head on over to Utopia Planitia, and I'm sure Chuck'll meet us there. Is that acceptable, Major?"

Five minutes later, _Serenity_ lifted off from her berth at the Eavesdown Docks. It took her less than fifteen minutes to cross the city, headed for Utopia Planitia. As they entered the airfield's airspace, Michael Tweedum, standing in the cockpit, gasped in surprise.

"Look at _Enterprise_," he said quietly.

Sarah and Casey both looked – and couldn't believe their eyes. _Enterprise_ looked brand new. This time around, the shipyard crew had not only repaired her, but they had repainted her – in the livery of the United States Air Force 89th Military Airlift Wing.

Casey laughed. "It's NASA-One!"

And indeed, it looked just like one of the President's planes. The blue field surrounding the cockpit, narrowing down to a stripe that ran the length of the fuselage, with "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" painted in bold block letters on the cargo bay doors, "ENTERPRISE" in bright white below the cockpit windows, and the American flag on the tail – it was enough to make patriotism swell in the heart of the American spy.

But the repainted shuttle really wasn't what Sarah Walker noticed. What she noticed was the red and white Toyota Yaris parked by _Enterprise_'s nose. Chuck Bartowski and Kaylee Frye both stood outside the car, hand in hand, as they watched _Serenity_ land fifty feet away from the shuttle.

Chuck and Kaylee met the crew as they all disembarked from _Serenity_ via the cargo ramp. "So, Chuck…" Bryce began, and let the sentence die.

Chuck nodded slowly, and sighed. "I'm going back."

Sarah gasped in surprise, and almost smiled – but fought the smile down when she saw the stoic look on Kaylee Frye's face. As happy as Sarah might have been, she had no desire to cause Kaylee any more pain.

"Here's the thing," Chuck continued. "There's part of my heart that keeps telling me to stay here. This crew has become like a second family to me. They've kept me safe and out of trouble for the last three months, and one of them even let me into her heart."

Kaylee smiled sadly. "But the problem is, my first family is in the twenty-first century," Chuck said. "Ellie, Devon, Morgan, you, Sarah, and even you, Casey. And that's why I have to go back."

Then he smiled and shrugged. "Besides, _Enterprise_ currently only has about three-fourths of a pilot –"

"Hey, watch it," Mike Tweedum growled.

"- and thanks to the Intersect, I can help fly."

A ripple of laughter ran through the crew. Then, as if by mutual consent, it was time to go.

Sarah, Casey, Bryce, and Tweedum said their good-byes to _Serenity_'s crew. Bryce and Casey helped Major Lorenz into the shuttle, where they strapped him down into a seat. Tweedum boarded the shuttle behind them, and as Sarah entered the hatch, she turned to look at Chuck.

"I'll be there in a minute," he called.

Chuck turned to Mal Reynolds. "Thank you for taking me in," he said.

Mal shrugged. "Hey, you were a great crew member," he replied, his voice cracking.

Chuck said good-bye to Simon, River, Zoe, and Jayne, the last of them nearly breaking Chuck's hand in a bone-crushing handshake. He turned to Inara, who embraced him.

"Thank you for being so good to Kaylee," she whispered. "I think you've made her believe in love."

Chuck smiled and hugged Inara back. "Thank you," he replied.

After he released Inara, _Serenity_'s crew boarded the old Firefly, leaving Chuck and Kaylee alone.

Kaylee looked up at Chuck, her eyes shining with tears. "I guess this is good-bye," she whispered.

Chuck nodded. "I'll never forget you," he replied, wrapping his arms around Kaylee. "You're absolutely amazing, Kaywinnit Lee Frye, and I love you."

"I love you too, Chuck," she replied, burying her face in his chest. He held her for a moment, and then she pulled back. Kaylee kissed Chuck one last time, and then broke it off.

"You better get going," she said.

Chuck, still holding Kaylee's hands in his own, squeezed them gently, then let go and headed for _Enterprise_. He ascended the stairs to the shuttle, but before he entered, he turned around to see Kaylee one last time. "Good-bye," he called.

Kaylee didn't say anything, just nodded and waved. Chuck ducked into the shuttle and pulled the hatch shut behind him.

The automated stairway rolled backward away from the shuttle, and it immediately began to taxi. Kaylee watched as it headed toward the runway. As it lined up, its engine ports began to glow, and then a moment later, it began to roll forward.

_Enterprise_ built up speed, and when it was almost two miles away, finally departed the planet's surface, heading into the night sky.

By now, Kaylee had no more tears to cry. With a sigh, she got into the Herder and drove it up into _Serenity_'s cargo bay. She got out and pushed the button to shut the cargo bay doors, looking sadly at the spot where _Enterprise_ had stood five minutes before.

* * *

**6:45 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
**_**Enterprise**_

_Enterprise_ had just completed its third orbit around Persephone. Captain Tweedum had explained to Chuck that in order for the shuttle to achieve breakaway velocity, it had to essentially slingshot around Persephone.

The maneuver had been completed, and orbit was now being broken. The retro rockets fired briefly, and shot _Enterprise_ out into deep space.

"Jumper online," Tweedum reported quietly as _Enterprise_ headed away from Persephone.

"Copy that," Chuck said, looking out his window –

And seeing a glint of sunlight off of something metal, about forty miles away. He put his face up against the window, peering out into space.

"It's _Serenity_," he whispered. The Firefly transport was lifting off out of Persephone's atmosphere, heading toward their location.

"Probably coming to see us off," Tweedum replied.

And sure enough, a moment later, Mal Reynolds' voice sounded over the radio. "Serenity _to _Enterprise," they heard. "_Smooth sailing. We'll see you 'round the 'verse_."

"Copy that, _Serenity_," Mike Tweedum said. "We'll make sure to send you a postcard."

"_Yeah, good luck with that_," Mal Reynolds chuckled.

Chuck gently adjusted _Enterprise_'s course to starboard, to keep from getting too close to _Serenity_ when they made the jump. "Jumper is ready," Tweedum said a moment later.

Chuck nodded and sighed, looking out at _Serenity_ one last time. "Let's go home."

* * *

_**Serenity**_

The crew had gathered on _Serenity_'s bridge to watch _Enterprise_ make the jump through time and space. "_Serenity_ to _Enterprise_," Mal said into his microphone. "Smooth sailing. We'll see you 'round the 'verse."

"_Copy that, _Serenity. _We'll make sure to send you a postcard._"

Quiet laughter swept through the bridge. "Yeah, good luck with that," Mal replied with a laugh.

Kaylee pressed her face against _Serenity_'s forward windshield, as though she could see Chuck from this far away.

_Enterprise_ turned slightly away from _Serenity_ – and then began to glow. A silver hue enveloped the shuttle from end to end –

_Good-bye, Chuck._

- and then _Enterprise_ disappeared.

Silence filled _Serenity_'s bridge. It was finally broken by Mal Reynolds.

"Alright," he said. "Let's get back to work."

* * *

**8:20 PM, Pacific Standard Time  
January 3****rd****, 2009  
**_**Enterprise**_

Everything within _Enterprise_ glowed silver for a moment – and then, it seemed as though time was standing still –

And then, it all returned to normal. Chuck looked forward, out the windshield. "Yeah, that's Earth," he said quietly.

Tweedum keyed his microphone. "Houston, this is _Enterprise_," he said, hailing the Johnson Space Center. "Do you copy?"

A moment passed, and then General Beckman's voice came over the radio. "_Roger that, _Enterprise_, we copy. Welcome home._"

"Copy, Houston," Tweedum replied. "Can we get a date and time fix, please?"

"_11:20 PM, Eastern Standard Time,_" Beckman replied. "_Saturday, January 3__rd__, 2009. Hardly even knew you were gone._"

"Probably for the best," John Casey muttered.

Then a different voice came on the radio. "Enterprise_, this is Houston. You are instructed to land at Edwards Air Force Base. Please use standard approach path three; you are cleared to land at your leisure._"

"_Enterprise_ copies," Tweedum replied. Turning the shuttle to the right, he instructed Chuck to fire the retro rockets for six seconds. Chuck did so, and _Enterprise_ dipped downward, plunging into Earth's atmosphere.

Re-entry was the smoothest it had been on the mission, and moments later, _Enterprise_ was passing over Southern California, headed toward Edwards Air Force Base. Chuck looked out the window at Los Angeles as they flew by. He'd be home soon.

A moment later, _Enterprise_'s tires chirped as they came down on the runway at Edwards. Captain Tweedum quickly brought the shuttle to a stop, a cordon of vehicles approaching them.

Chuck sighed, and took one last look out the windshield before unbuckling his seatbelt.

It was over.


	18. Big Damn Epilogue: All You Need Is Love

_**Chuck vs. the Future**_** Redux, The Big Damn Epilogue – "All You Need Is Love"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
John Casey – Adam Baldwin  
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
Mal Reynolds – Nathan Fillion  
Jayne Cobb – Adam Baldwin  
Captain Omar Yagosian – Olek Krupa  
Kaylee Frye – Jewel Staite  
Inara Serra – Morena Baccarin  
Ellie Bartowski – Sarah Lancaster  
Devon Woodcomb – Ryan McPartlin

* * *

**8:30 AM, Pacific Standard Time  
February 14****th****, 2009  
Burbank, California**

Things had been slow lately. In fact, ever since Chuck, Sarah, and Casey had returned from the twenty-sixth century, there had been very little activity. They had been sent to Washington for the Inauguration, but Chuck didn't flash on anybody who was trying to bump off Barack Obama – instead, he just froze, along with the other two million people on the Mall.

Sure, there had been the whole "keep Tyler Martin from getting his ass killed" mission two weeks ago. There was the bit where Anna started seeing another guy, only for Chuck to find out that said guy was a Triad assassin who was out to kill the Chinese ambassador to the United States. He had ended up throwing a bomb into a Herder and driving it away by remote control before it blew up.

Sarah had thought that he was in the Herder when it blew. Chuck got slapped for that one.

And now, it was Valentine's Day. It felt a little weird to Chuck for it to be Valentine's Day – he had just celebrated it two and a half months before – or, depending on the perspective, five hundred ten years hence.

He exited the Large-Mart, a slim black box in one hand, a fresh de-thorned rose, a Valentine's Day card, and a 16 megabyte SDM card (courtesy the 99 Cents Only store) in the other. He had intentionally gotten to the plaza a little early so that he could get things taken care of.

Chuck sighed as he unlocked the door of the Buy More. He had been in space. He had traveled through the stars. He had set up the government computer network on a planet hundreds of light years away.

And now, here he was again, back to fixing the computers of people who were generally pretty stupid. It was enough to make him want to scream.

But, he refrained. Locking the Buy More doors behind him, Chuck made a beeline for the Nerd Herd counter. Bringing his computer out of sleep mode, he slid the SDM card into the computer's reader and told the computer to upload a certain file to it.

While that was being done, he took the rose and headed toward the appliances section of the store. Sitting on a display table was just the appliance he needed – the Black & Decker VS1300 vacuum sealer. The green-shirts had had a bit much fun playing with it as of late; however, on the upside, the ability to vacuum seal leftovers had somewhat eliminated the whole Mystery Crisper game, and that was something that Chuck was quite alright with.

Popping the rose into one of the plastic bags, he placed its edge into the machine. A moment later, it was finished, the bag vacuum sealed. The rose was a little flattened, but Chuck was okay with that – it was liable to be in far worse condition by the time it reached its destination.

Chuck returned to the Nerd Herd counter. The file was done copying to the SDM card. Chuck popped that out, and put it in the envelope with the signed card. Sealing that shut, Chuck placed both the envelope and the sealed rose into the box. The lid went on the box, the box was taped shut, and then a Buy More shipping label went on the top of the box.

The label had been pre-printed. Under "Deliver To:", it said "Kaywinnit Lee Frye." Below that, under address, Chuck had simply put: "Transport _Serenity_." Finally, on the line for date to deliver, Chuck had printed "14 February 2520; to be held in National Security Agency archives."

That done, Chuck slid the box under his desk and began getting the counter ready for opening. The morning passed uneventfully – right up until Emmett Milbarge came in and started playing _Must Love Dogs_ on the entire wall. "God," Chuck groaned, lowering his head to the counter. Three hours later, when John Casey came FINALLY in for the mid-shift, Chuck grabbed the box and approached him, grateful for a distraction.

"Morning, Bartowski," Casey grumbled as usual when Chuck walked up.

"Well, good morning to you too, sunshine," Chuck replied, amused. "Listen, I need to ask you a favor."

Casey turned and stared at Chuck, a look of mock disbelief on his face. "Unbelievable," he muttered. "February 14th, 2009. Chuck Bartowski asks me for a favor."

"Ha, ha," Chuck replied sarcastically. "Seriously, though. I need you to arrange for a package to be held in the NSA archives."

Casey narrowed his eyes. "What is it?" he asked, reaching out and grabbing the box from Chuck before he could object.

Chuck began to turn red as Casey read the shipping label. "Oh, for God's sake," Casey groaned, rolling his eyes. "Surely you can't be serious."

Chuck raised an eyebrow and nodded. "Oh, but I am serious."

Casey shook his head and turned away from Chuck. As he walked away, Chuck called after him, "AND STOP CALLING ME SHIRLEY!"

As Chuck watched Casey go, he grinned – and his smile immediately faded as a dog began barking onscreen. _I will kill Emmett_, Chuck growled internally –

"Are you okay, Chuck?" Sarah's voice came from behind him.

Chuck turned around. Sarah had healed completely. There was no sign of her head wound, no memory loss. And despite everything that had happened to Chuck, his stomach still jumped a little bit when he saw her.

"Uh, no, not since Emmett started playing romantic comedies twenty-four, seven," Chuck sighed. "He must love _Must Love Dogs_, because that's all he's been showing."

* * *

**1:30 PM, Alliance Mean Time  
February 14****th****, 2520  
**_**Serenity**_

It was dark and cold out in the black – but this was the part of space that Mal Reynolds liked best. The part that was quiet. The part that was never disturbed –

_Well, that's not ENTIRELY true_, he thought to himself. The five hundred year old Toyota sitting in his cargo bay was testament to that.

And for that matter, so was the Alliance cruiser that had just appeared out of nowhere in front of him. "What the HELL?!"

Mal rapidly brought _Serenity_'s throttle down to stop. The old Firefly coasted to a halt, never in any real danger of colliding with the cruiser.

"_Transport_ Serenity_, this is MKV _Columbia," the vaguely familiar voice of _Columbia_'s captain sounded over the radio. "_Please release helm control and prepare for docking_."

Ordinarily, Mal would've wanted to know exactly why he was doing that, but over the course of a month one year before, he had come to know and, if not trust, then respect the captain of _Columbia_. "Roger, wilco," Mal replied over the radio.

Reaching up over his head, Mal flipped a series of three switches, releasing helm control of _Serenity_ to _Columbia_'s computer. As he watched, _Columbia_ brought _Serenity_ about, pulling her toward and into a docking bay.

Mal grabbed the PA microphone. "This is the captain speaking," he said. "We are currently docking with an Alliance cruiser. Don't be alarmed; we know this ship. We should be back on our merry way in a few minutes here."

Hanging up the microphone, Mal headed aft, toward the cargo bay. As he stepped out into the corridor, Jayne emerged from his quarters, with his trusty shotgun Vera and a belt of grenades strapped on.

Mal stopped in his path, and gave Jayne a look of death. "NO," he growled.

"Aw, c'mon, Mal!" Jayne whined.

"Jayne!" Mal snapped. "Down! Back! Sit!"

Pouting, Jayne grunted and returned to his quarters. Mal shook his head and continued on his way toward the cargo bay.

As the door opened, Mal saw one lone individual standing outside his ship – Captain Omar Yagosian of MKV _Columbia_. "Captain Reynolds," Yagosian said by way of greeting. "Good to see you again."

"Captain Yagosian," Mal replied. "First time in my life, I can say the feeling's mutual to an Alliance officer."

Yagosian cracked a small smile. "Give us a chance, Captain," he said. "You'll find we're full of surprises."

"Oh, I bet," Mal muttered under his breath. "So. What can I do you for?"

Yagosian held up a black box. "This," he replied. "It's been in the National Security Agency archives for the last five centuries. There were strict instructions to deliver it on this date, to a member of your crew."

Mal reached out for the box, but Yagosian pulled it away. "I'm sorry, Captain," he said, "but we've been ordered to only release it to the addressee."

Five centuries in the archives? "It's for Kaylee Frye, isn't it?" Mal asked.

"Yes, it is," Yagosian replied with a nod.

Mal nodded as well, and stepped over to the comm panel. "Mal to Kaylee," he said, depressing the button.

"_What's up, Captain_?" he heard Kaylee say.

"You got mail in the cargo bay," he replied.

A moment later, Kaylee emerged from the catwalk above into the cargo bay. She looked at Mal and Captain Yagosian curiously, then descended the stairs.

"I'm Kaylee Frye," she said, approaching Captain Yagosian. "You have mail for me?"

"I do," Yagosian replied, handing her the box. "And I have to say, you must be a very important person, seeing as how the NSA kept that around for five hundred years."

Kaylee looked at the box. A faded shipping label was attached to the top – addressed to her, with an address printed in the upper left corner – _Buy More Electronics SuperStore, 9000 Burbank Blvd., Burbank, CA 91502_. A small grin appeared on her face – there was only one person this could've come from.

"The person who sent this thinks I am," she replied quietly.

She turned and walked away from the two men, leaving the captains to converse with each other. Climbing the steps, she returned to engineering.

Kaylee sat down on her hammock and very gently pulled the packing tape off the edges of the box. Centuries old dried-out adhesive crumbled and fell away from the tape, leaving a slightly sticky residue on the box.

Carefully, Kaylee shook the bottom of the box out of the lid – and there, inside, were a plastic package and a paper envelope.

The plastic package had been vacuum sealed shut, and inside was a flower which Kaylee immediately recognized as a rose. It was many centuries dead, and had long since dried out, but Kaylee thought that the blood-red and forest-green hues which it had turned were absolutely beautiful.

Kaylee slid a finger under the edge of the envelope, opening it, and resulting in more dried adhesive crumbling off. Inside was a card, which split in two the moment she removed it. An SDM card fell out onto the deck as the card split.

Leaning over, Kaylee picked up the SDM card, and slid it into the music player she kept in engineering. Immediately, the strains of a song she had come to know and love began to fill the engineering compartment.

"_Words are flying out like endless rain into a paper cup… they slither while they pass, they slip away, across the universe…_"

Gingerly, Kaylee turned the now-split card over. The writing inside was still completely legible, despite its age.

_Dear Kaylee,  
By the time you receive this, it will have been about eleven months for you since I left _Serenity_. For me, it's been about a month and a half._

_When we celebrated Valentine's Day in 2519, I didn't have a card or a rose to give you, and as clichéd as they have become in the 21__st__ century, they're still the most enduring symbols of the day._

_With that in mind, I decided to send you a Valentine's Day card. As you can see, I also got you a rose. I had to press and vacuum-seal it to make sure it got to you, and so it doesn't look nearly as nice as it would have fresh. Nonetheless, that makes you one of the very few people living in your time – if not the only one – to have seen an actual rose, up close and in person._

_But, besides wanting you to get to see a rose, in my time, a man giving a woman a rose is supposed to be a sign that he cares about her. And I truly do care about you, Kaylee. You won't even be born for another 490 years, but you really are a very special person._

_Anyway, I'm really not good at this sort of thing, so I'm just going to stop before I make an idiot of myself. I'll always remember you, Kaylee. You'll be with me in my heart._

_Aaand… there it is. I've made an idiot of myself. I'm going to stop now._

_I'll always love you,_

_Chuck_

Kaylee laughed at Chuck's clumsiness at the end, but couldn't help but be touched at how sweet he was, even across five centuries. A tear gently made its way down her right cheek, and she wiped it away.

Setting down the card, she headed out of engineering – these days, she had other responsibilities to tend to besides just the engines.

Inara was waiting in her shuttle when Kaylee arrived. She always looked so natural holding the little three month old boy – _almost like one of those Earth-That-Was pictures of the Virgin Mary and Jesus_, Kaylee thought, smiling slightly at the irony.

Kaylee watched Inara for a moment, as the Companion spoke quietly to the little boy. He never cried when she held him, and always smiled when she talked to him. Inara would've made a perfect mother – _and maybe she'll have the chance yet_, Kaylee thought.

The little boy had gotten a lot from his father – curly hair, a slightly pointed chin, and piercing eyes that seemed to be observing everything, all at once. But somehow, genetics had gone a little wacky and given him his mother's red hair and green eyes.

Inara looked up, to see Kaylee standing in the doorway. "Hi," Inara said softly. "Chuck's almost asleep. He started crying a little when we were first docking with _Columbia_ – I think he could feel the tension in the air, and he didn't like it."

"I wouldn't either, if I was three months old," Kaylee replied with a smile.

Inara rose and crossed the shuttle to Kaylee. She handed the little boy off to his mother. "I think it's funny how much he looks like Chuck, but ended up with your hair and eyes."

"Freakish genetics, as I understand it," Kaylee replied, shaking her head. "Simon tried to explain it to me once –"

"And you were bored to tears, right?" Inara laughed.

"Absolutely," Kaylee agreed. She turned to leave the shuttle, but Inara stopped her.

"Kaylee," she said quietly, "why didn't you ask Chuck if you could go with him?"

Kaylee turned back around, and was quiet for a moment. "He asked me to," she nearly whispered. "He practically begged me. It broke my heart to say no, maybe even more than it broke my heart for him to leave. But I told him I had to stay for the same reason he had to go – family."

Inara was quiet for a moment. "You're an amazing young woman, Kaylee," she finally said.

Kaylee didn't say anything. She just smiled, turned, and left the shuttle, heading to her quarters.

By the time Kaylee had reached her quarters, little Chuck had woken up. When she looked down at him, she saw him staring up at her with his inquisitive green eyes.

And for the first time since he had been born, Kaylee went to her computer terminal and pulled up a picture of Chuck Bartowski. "Charles Irving Frye," she said quietly, holding Chuck in her lap, "I'd like to tell you a story about your father. It begins on Christmas Day, 2008, in Los Angeles, California…"

* * *

**9:30 PM, Pacific Daylight Time  
March 17****th****, 2009  
Echo Park, California**

Chuck stood in his bedroom, staring at the back of the Tron poster. No matter how long he spent trying to figure out the whole twisted network of insanity, any logical conclusions still escaped him.

It all came back to Orion, and he had no idea who Orion was.

With a sigh, Chuck picked up the poster and hung it back on his wall. He'd have to figure it out later.

He turned away from the poster, and headed toward the bathroom. Before he reached it, though, he noticed something sitting on his dresser.

It was the four-leaf clover charm that he had purchased on Persephone, months beforehand. He had brought it home, pulled it out of his duffel bag, and completely forgotten about it.

But… this was perfect. A four-leaf clover charm, on St. Patrick's Day.

Smiling, Chuck grabbed the charm, and headed out the door. "Going to Sarah's," he called to his bewildered sister. "Be back later."

Ellie shook her head. "Didn't he just decide to not move in with her a week ago?"

Devon laughed. "Never underestimate the pulling power of a beautiful woman, babe."

Chuck reached Sarah's hotel in downtown L.A. fifteen minutes later. As the elevator ascended to her floor, he kept running over what he wanted to say in his mind. It had to be perfect. No mistakes, no looking back this time.

When he knocked on the door, it was a moment until she opened it. That moment filled Chuck with dread – and made him think of the last time he had shown up at Sarah's place at this time of night, only to find Bryce Larkin there, doing his best to get into Sarah's pants.

But not this time. No Bryce Larkin, and no – THANK GOD – Cole Barker. Just Sarah, her hair wet from, Chuck was guessing, just getting out of the shower.

"Hey," she said, her face breaking into a smile as she looked out at Chuck.

"Hi," Chuck said. "Can I come in?"

Sarah shrugged. "Place is a little messy, but sure."

Chuck walked in and looked around. The room was nearly immaculate, except for some disarray on Sarah's dresser. "This is a little messy?" he asked in disbelief. "For me, a little messy means I have a path to walk across my room."

"I'm aware," Sarah replied dryly. "We need to work on that."

Chuck laughed. "Sure," he said. "Anyway, there was something I wanted to talk to you about."

Sarah turned to him. "Oh?"

Chuck nodded, and sat down on the edge of Sarah's bed. He patted the bed beside him, and Sarah sat down next to him.

"So, I've been doing a lot of thinking the last couple of months," Chuck began. "I've realized some very important things."

Sarah raised an eyebrow. "Such as?"

"Well, I've realized that there's a very big difference between two parts of a certain part of life," Chuck said. "You see, when a person truly cares about another person, enough so to make themselves completely vulnerable to that person, and make them a part of their life, that's love. I know that's how Kaylee Frye felt about me, and that's how I felt – and still do feel, a little – about her.

"But…" Chuck hesitated. "When a person does all that, and then, on top of that, is willing to lay down their life for another person, is willing to go to any extent for that person…"

Chuck turned and looked at Sarah. "When a person is willing to kill somebody to protect somebody else, and then lie to them to keep them from being wracked by feelings of guilt – that, if you'll excuse the clichéd manner, is true love."

A small smile appeared on Sarah's face, as her eyes began to fill with tears. "And that is probably the biggest reason I came back," Chuck finished quietly.

Sarah just nodded, not trusting her voice. "I also got you another charm for you bracelet," Chuck said, reaching into his pocket. "Let me see your wrist?"

Sarah held up her left wrist for Chuck. He came out with the four-leaf clover charm. "I picked this up at an Earth antiques store in Eavesdown," he explained. "It seems to be some sort of a locket, but nobody's been able to open it. As legend goes, it can only be opened by its true owner."

"Is that so," Sarah said softly, as Chuck attached the charm to the bracelet. Twisting the bracelet around, she took the locket between the thumb and index finger of her right hand. There seemed to be a bit of a smudge on one side of the locket, which she rubbed with her thumb –

And to both their astonishment, with a tiny hiss of centuries-old air, the locket popped open. Chuck looked up at Sarah, a look of amazement in his eyes.

Sarah, for one, was speechless. Gently, she pulled the locket open –

Inside the locket, on the left hand side, was a tiny picture – a picture of Chuck and Sarah. They were quite a bit older, but it was unquestionably them. On the right hand side was print too small for Sarah to read without magnification.

Still stunned, she turned to her nightstand and pulled out a magnifying glass. Holding it over the print, she read it aloud, her voice filled with shock.

"To Sarah, my lucky charm, on our twenty-fifth anniversary," she said quietly. "Love, Chuck. June 14th, 2036."

She looked back at Chuck. "What was that you were saying about true love?"

Chuck grinned. "It's all you need."

_THE END_


End file.
